text:
Nexus 7 ignores apple-touch-icon

Go to any website that has:
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/apple-touch-icon.png" />
<link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" href="/apple-touch-icon.png" />

For example: bbc.co.uk, starbucks.com, or play.com.
Create a bookmark from the browsers.
Go to Bookmarks, and Add to Homescreen.

On other Android devices, the icon that appears on your homescreen will be the icon specified in one of the two tags above. On my Nexus 7 though, it always uses a bookmark icon with the site's favicon in the middle. I know the icons are working, because if you go into Chrome => Bookmarks, it shows the bookmarks with the apple-touch-icon there, just not on the homescreen.
Did this change in Jellybean? Is it a bug, or intentional for some reason? I can't find any mention of this behavior anywhere online.

I know this isn't gonna help but it would probably work if it's something like <link rel="google-touch-icon" href="/google-touch-icon.png" />. Nah, just kidding.

Not Nexus 7 specific. The changed the behaviour with "apple touch icons" in JellyBean.
Doesn't work on my Galaxy Nexus either.

It looks like Google is afraid of being sued by Apple for using "square icon with rounded corners". There is an issu on http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125076. However there is information about fix version set to 25th release. I don't know if chromium and chrome versions have the same numbers, but last time I checked Chrome it was on v. 22. There is also a posted suggestion of introducing chrome specific Android-Icon.

Thanks for the info, that bug report is exactly what I was looking for! To clarify, it looks to be a bug/missing feature on Mobile Chrome. Of course, since Mobile Chrome replaced the Android Browser completely in Jellybean, that's why it appeared to be a Jellybean bug.
Weird though, that seems like a big feature to leave out. If it's because they don't want to get sued, then they could at least give us an android-touch-icon meta tag to replace it.


text:
Large gaps between home screen icons, can it be reduced?
The icons on the Samsung Galaxy S3 have large gaps between them, enough so that if they were moved closer together you could fit at least one more row and maybe one more column. Is there a way to change this?
This is what it looks like:

AFAIK there's no built-in method to achieve that personalization.
I would go with Apex Launcher by Android Does available from Google Play Store, to use with Android 4.0+, it's free and among the features you'll find:

Customizable homescreens and grid size
Scrollable dock
Infinite & elastic scrolling
Customizable app and folder icons
Multiple drawer styles
Drawer apps sorting
Hide apps from the drawer
Enjoy homescreen gestures
Backup/restore settings and data

APEX Launcher Homescreen Settings:

Other features can be found if you go PRO.

Duh, I didn't think to look into the settings for the custom launcher. I use Go Launcher and it does this a little bit too (albeit not as well as APEX). Thanks!

I accepted this a couple of days ago, I don't know why it didn't stick... oh well, accepted again.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Why does my screen still turn off while charging?

Possible Duplicate:
Where is “Stay Awake” option in Ice Cream Sandwich on the Galaxy S3?

I used to have an HTC Evo Shift. If I plugged it into a power cord, the screen would stay on until I explicitly pushed the power button. Now, I have a Samsung Galaxy S III. The screen turns off after a certain timeout regardless of whether it is plugged in. There is an option to change the timeout, but I would rather not be switching it all the time based on whether I have it plugged in. Is there an option I am missing?

Stock Samsung devices with TouchWiz (Samsung's version of Android) do not have this option to Stay Awake, and it is a good thing they don't. especially when they use the Super AMOLED screens. The image can burn in to the screen very quickly.

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


text:
What is this "wvm" file, and can I get rid of it?
I have a Nexus 7 running Jelly Bean. Using the Android File Transfer program, I was examining the contents of part of the internal drive and found this:
/Android/data/com.google.android.videos/files/Movies/bWF0dGhldy5ob2x0QGdtYWlsLmNvbQ/framework_LFL4UnYvaGE.wvm (2.82 GB, last modified 18 Jul 2012, 7:59 PM)
In another directory (adjacent to bWF0dGhldy5ob2x0QGdtYWlsLmNvbQ), there's a subtitles directory which contains two files:
LFL4UnYvaGE.cc (264 bytes) and LFL4UnYvaGE.en.cc (129 KB), both modified on the same day (18 Jul, but earlier in the day at 5:57 PM).

As you can see, the .wvm file is very large. I tried renaming its parent Movies folder to Movies2 to see if it broke anything and so far it doesn't seem to matter. I tried copying it to my Mac but it says it is unable to copy the file (yet it can copy the parent folder(s) okay). And I don't currently have any movies (that I know of) saved to my tablet either from the Play store or copied over from my computer.
What does this file do, and would it be safe to delete it (and the associated subtitles) to save space?

Could be the free movie, transformer or something that comes with Nexus 7.

.wvm is a DRM encoded video file (WideVine media file)

These files are for the Transformers: Dark of the Moon film which was included promotionally with your Nexus 7.  The movie was not, at least in my case, pre-installed on your device, as it takes a considerable amount of your available storage space (especially if you have an 8GB unit!).
I'm guessing you must at some point have unknowingly hit the small 'button' on the video telling it to download the film for offline use.

The first thing that came to my mind was, that this may be a WebM video file (Matroska container + VP8 video stream + Vorbis audio stream). It would have made sense. But feeding the file to MediaInfo looks like this:
$ mediainfo Downloads/framework_BpAYRcyW2_A.wvm
General
Complete name                            : Downloads/framework_BpAYRcyW2_A.wvm
Format                                   : MPEG-PS
File size                                : 2.73 GiB
Duration                                 : 2h 34mn
Overall bit rate                         : 2 532 Kbps

Video
ID                                       : 224 (0xE0)
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : Main@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 3 frames
Duration                                 : 2h 34mn
Width                                    : 1 280 pixels
Height                                   : 536 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode                          : Variable
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive

Audio
ID                                       : 192 (0xC0)
Format                                   : AAC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
Format version                           : Version 4
Format profile                           : LC
Muxing mode                              : ADTS
Duration                                 : 2h 34mn
Bit rate mode                            : Variable / Variable / Variable
Minimum bit rate                         : 190 Kbps / 190 Kbps
Maximum bit rate                         : 231 Kbps / 231 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy

Menu

An AVC video stream and AAC audio stream, is what one would expect from a regular MP4, but MPEG-PS format (PS = program stream) is unusual. This is how a regular MP4 looks in MediaInfo:
$ mediainfo .miro/Movies/FLOSS-Weekly/floss0222_h264m_864x480_500.mp4
General
Complete name                            : .miro/Movies/FLOSS-Weekly/floss0222_h264m_864x480_500.mp4
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media
Codec ID                                 : isom
File size                                : 282 MiB
Duration                                 : 1h 5mn
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 605 Kbps
Writing application                      : Lavf54.3.100

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : Main@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 4 frames
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 1h 5mn
Bit rate                                 : 500 Kbps
Width                                    : 864 pixels
Height                                   : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 29.970 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.040
Stream size                              : 233 MiB (83%)
Writing library                          : x264 core 120 r2164 da19765
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=2 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x1:0x131 / me=umh / subme=6 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=2 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=60 / keyint_min=31 / scenecut=0 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=500 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=1500 / vbv_bufsize=6000 / nal_hrd=none / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language                                 : English

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                           : LC
Codec ID                                 : 40
Duration                                 : 1h 5mn
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 96.0 Kbps
Maximum bit rate                         : 1 500 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 44.7 MiB (16%)
Language                                 : English

The file [from the Nexus 7] even  plays for a few seconds in VLC and in MPlayer, but then I get error messages. So either the format is not yet supported or it's sort of encrypted.

you get the error message because the file is DRM encrypted, but all DRM files have the first 10 seconds unencrypted - hence you being able to play them

WVM is a video file that has been encrypted using the Widevine (now Google) DRM platform.
The first 10 seconds are not encrypted, that is why you can see it in VLC.

A wvm file is not the same as a wmv, the wvm is a video downloaded from Google Play Movies and is a type of MPEG-4 video file. It is currently unable to be opened by anything other than the Google Play Movies app because of the DRM properties surrounding the file.

All my wvm files that I found were copies of Google Play TV/movies that I'd downloaded previously and thought I'd deleted off the storage afterwards. I got rid of about 4gb of those files by using a file manager app and searching the device for wvm files.

WMV and WVM not same. İf you download some film in the android market inside this film format WVM. İf you want to check you can.this file inside ( STORAGE - SDCARD0 - ANDROİD - DATA - com.google.android.videos - FİLES - MOVİES -Yi5zZW43OUBnbWFpbC5jb20 ) All this film this folder inside. You can delete if you want.

WMV stands for Windows Media Video -- so what you've found very likely is a Video-file with subtitles. It could be a demo video shipped together with the application in whichs directory it resides (Google Play Movies & TV). I'd say it should be safe to delete it -- but I would first try doing so via the app itself to be sure (there you also could first play it to see what it is about -- plus deleting it from there would ensure all connected data is removed as well). In the worst case, you may need to re-install the app.

Is WMV the same as WVM then? (And there's no videos that appear in the Play Movies & TV app. That's what I thought too, though.)

Ouch, got me! I thought it was a misspelling on your side (and due to the subtitles I didn't check a second time) -- the screenshot has it WVM, too. Looks like they messed with the names (see this XDA thread. Heck, even a google search asks me "did you mean WMV"...

PS: From the context I take it they switch the letters for DRMd videos. Could it be you purchased some video?

Here's another one: http://www.droidrzr.com/index.php/topic/1899-re-play-downloaded-google-play-movies/ -- and yeah, pretty sure it's a movie file, and almost sure it's a DRMd WMV :)

Well, the Nexus 7 came with a free Transformers movie purchase. I downloaded it then I removed it when I was finished (I tapped the pin icon) a while ago. So just now I long-tapped the movie and touched "Remove from Device." It no longer appears in my Play Movies app. Yet now, and even before, "Settings" said the Movies app was taking only 6.12 MB. But the file transfer program still shows the same files there. And thanks for that link; I wonder how to extract it. (The movie isn't rented; it's purchased, and I prefer to liberate my data.)

Quick update: I deleted the files in question with the File Transfer program. Of course it won't let me copy the DRM'ed file to my computer. Perhaps for another topic, I'd like to learn how to get the file off my device and onto my computer (for safe keeping).

Another topic, for sure -- and it has to do with root. Which may make some DRM stuff no longer working (I've read the servers block rooted devices, which then would apply to this app as well). I don't care, as I never take any DRM'd stuff (I also do not DRM my books even when directly offered). Things I've bought I own and should be able to use where I want.


text:
Support for Ultra High Speed MicroSD cards
I am going to buy a new MicroSD card for my Motorola Milestone. The phone has Cyanogenmod 7. The upper limit as told by the manufacturer is 32GB, and because they got cheaper now, I'm going to buy the maximum possible. However, there are those new types of cards called “Ultra High Speed” which, I believe, weren't available when the phone came out.
Questions: Will those cards work with my device? Do they need any special support from the OS? Will I benefit from extra speed?

The new UHS-I card
Your phone comes with a microSDHC form factor, and according to Scandisk, their cards are  compatible:

SanDisk Ultra® microSDXC™ UHS-I card: see specifications tab

Available capacities: 8GB,16GB, 32GB, 64GB
Performance/speed: Up to 30MB/s read speed; write speed lower
Compatibility: Compatible with all microSDHC [or microSDXC ]supporting host devices

SanDisk Extreme Pro® microSDHC™ UHS-I card: see specifications tab

Available capacities: 8GB,16GB
Performance/speed: Up to 95 MB/s (633X) read speed; write speed up to 90 MB/s (600X)
Compatibility: Compatible with all microSDHC supporting host devices

Since the form factor remains the same, there's no problem here.

Your Device
Your device, while capable of reading, will be unable to take advantages over this new card speeds.
Mainly because this technology is new and the OS simple wasn't prepared for it.
On a personal note: Don't spend your money with this card on that specific phone. You'll have no gain from it.

I actually bought the first one you mentioned, mostly because the price of it was about the same as of a slower class-10. And, as predicted, it works. Thank you.

Same price == nice ;)

Will those cards work with my device?

Yes, I believe SDHC UHS-I (Ultra High Speed) cards are backwards compatible and will "work" in an SDHC only device (that the Motorola Milestone appears to be).

Do they need any special support from the OS?

Yes, in order to operate at the advertised higher speeds. "Use of UHS requires that the host device command the card to drop from 3.3-volt to 1.8-volt operation and select the 4-bit transfer mode." Wikipedia - Secure Digital

Will I benefit from extra speed?

No, it will work like an ordinary SDHC Class 10 card.


text:
How do I get photos in Gallery on my phone to show up on/sync with my Nexus 7?
Auto sync is turned on in both devices but nothing shows up on the Nexus 7 unless I manually transfer pictures via bluetooth.  Notably, Calendars and People sync without a problem.  But not Gallery.  My phone is a Galaxy Nexus. Both devices are running Android 4.1.1.

Have you signed up for Google+? One of its features is automatically uploading photos. As long as you're using the same account on both devices I'd expect your photos to end up on both (in addition to your Google+/Photos area).

AFAIK, pictures from gallery are not uploaded to picassa gallery by sync, unless you intentionally upload them by sharing options.
To put this to test, I just now tried to capture an image though camera and synced. It did not turn up in Picassa.
I don't know why this way, but on the first hand if your first device is not uploading image to picassa with sync, there is no way your other device is going to get it.
There are plenty of other ways using apps like sugar sync, drop box etc. but I assume here the question was asked in compassion with contacts and calendar which gets synced with Google's services without any other app support.

Dropbox has a somewhat new option you can enable which will automatically upload all pictures you take to a special Pictures folder in your Dropbox.

So there's no way to just take a picture on my phone and have it automatically visible in Gallery on Nexus 7 without using an app like Picasa or Dropbox?  What's the point of the option to sync Gallery if it doesn't sync the picture folders between devices? What exactly is it syncing then?

I believe  you can  install one drive on both and upload to onedrive and it will be on other device you can set up your pics to backup to one drive and it will do the work for you

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


text:
Google Play: Error downloading app - insufficient space
After one of the latest updates (not sure if it was the last one or a previous one) of the Google Play app, I am having an error trying to update a large app (42MB). It says:

Error Downloading . There is insufficient space on the device.

My device is a Samsung P1000 running Froyo. It's rooted, but the error was there before rooting it.
A quick Google search showed several Samsung users having the same problem (the app in question that was giving me the headache is Smurf's village). Some said that removing the updates to the Android Market (Google Play) app would fix it, but to me it was of no avail.
I also tried the procedure in this Google help FAQ to no avail.
Now I am stuck with a prehistoric version of the Market (that works on small apps) and still cannot update Smurf's Village or install big apps. How can I fix this?
EDIT: device has over 2GB of internal SD storage, 27GB of external SD card, so space is not an issue.

Sorry for not stating it, but the device has no lack of free space.

For me, it was all about killing and rebuilding a bigger cache. I want it registered on SE so other people having the same problem can find an answer googling for it.
The problem seems to be with the size of the partition the cache is in. It is mounted on a 20-30MB partition in the phone internal SD card.
The fix that worked to me was described in this blog post.
THE BLOCK BELOW IS TAKEN FROM Jimmy Halim's blog post, and used with his permission.

After browsing around, I found out that the cache folder (that I assume used by the market) is using small partition (around 20mb in my case).
  So to solve this we need to change it to bigger partition.
You gonna need Android Terminal Simulator or equivalent terminal app. This will also require your Android rooted.
Type su (root permission request will be shown: you need to approve it).
Type cd /
Type umount /cache
Type mount -o rw,remount -t rootfs rootfs / (to set the folder access to rw – read write)
Type rmdir /cache (delete cache folder).
  I personally using root explorer to do point 5-6.
Type mkdir /sdcard/cache
Type ln -s /sdcard/cache /cache (to link cache folder to /sdcard/cache – which should have bigger partition size)

My p1000 was rooted and had terminal emulator and busybox installed. I just typed the commands in the order described by Jimmy Halim (kudos to him).
Searching for the background to this question, I also found this forum post (in portuguese) that seems to (untested by me) solve the problem using an app.
[begin portuguese posting]
Para solucionar o problema, eu  precisei modificar o tamanho do cache do telefone
[end portuguese posting]

What about the poor souls who don't already have terminal emulator or busybox installed. They can't install them, because they can't install anything.

@Urbycoz   If you can't install anything, that is stuff for another related question. I only had problems installing LARGE apps. Emulator and Busybox are tiny compared to today's apps. Also, someone could ask "What about non-rooted devices" and the answer would be the same: It is stuff for another Q&A.

If a user couldn't install anything at all, they could always enable USB debugging and do everything through ADB.

Can you check how much space is left in internal storage of your device? You can do that by going to Settings->Applications->Storage Use and see how much is free space in internal storage. If the value is less that what the app needs (i.e. 42 Mb) then it means that you have to free up some space before installing.
To free up:

Best is to visit the app list and remove unwanted one, starting with the one that occupies more space.
Move the heavy apps to SD Card. Though I suspect this could be possible only from GingerBread onwards and not in your Froyo.

while walking the app list, deleting the cache of apps when it's too big. Maybe only a temporary solution, but better than nothing.

My p1000 has plenty of storage, both internal and external. It is an issue with the cache itself, I was able to solve it for my (ROOTED) android. Still on the lookout for a solution to the cache size that does not require rooting.

The OP said that there was enough space...

Why o why I cannot add an answer to this question? Anyway, finally found a solution for this - uninstall update from Google play app

Just to add some other things to try if @Mindwin's answer doesn't work for you:
1) Delete your logs located in /data/log.

You can do this by either going to the recovery menu and deleting the logs (if the option is available for you, it isn't for every phone). Or if you have a rooted phone you can run rm -r in this folder from a terminal emulator.

2) If you can install apps, the SD Maid app can remove any lingering cache or apk files that are sometimes left over after removal.
3) If your phone is a Samsung Galaxy, you can dial *#9900# from the dial screen and then choose the second option: "Delete Dumpstate/logcat".


text:
How to reset the device information in Google Play Store?
I was using Samsung Galaxy with android, then I bought the new Motorola DROID RAZR using same SIM card.
when I'm trying to download any app from Google Play Store, it still refers to my previous device. How would I update my device information?

You can visit the accounts page in your computer and click on "Settings" tab. Under "My Devices" section you will have all the devices that your account is being tied with.

Common causes that prevent your device from being presented at your devices list are:

You're using the Google Play website before using the Google Play Store app on your device.
You're signed in with a different account on play.google.com than you're using on your device.
Your device isn’t supported. (DROID RAZR is supported)

The first one probably solves your issue of registering the device within Google Play Store.
After, you can manage your devices and disable the old one. Access your account, click the "Settings" tab and untick the "Shown in menus" checkbox.
References: Google Play Help


text:
IPsec PSK - VPN connection not working in android Phones
The VPN connection setup is not working in android phones but whereas the same setup is working fine in iPhone. Is Group password and IPsec pre-shared key are same.
Please clarify. Thanks in advance.

There are some combination of Android devices and VPN servers which are known not to work fine. For instance, Sony "Z" series phones, running Android version greater than 4.3 are unable to connect to Openswan based VPN servers. Unfortunately your question doesn't give sufficient details on the context (devices used, android version, VPN server specs)


text:
Google Talk contact list shows fewer contacts than my PC IM client
I always see the same 6 people online from my phone. However, Empathy or the gtalk widget in gmail shows ~60 people online. Why aren't the same people shown online on my phone?
Its a One V running ICS and Sense 4.0.
Thanks.

Open Google Talk on your phone, press Menu (i.e. 3-Dot Indicator) -> Display Options and select Availability (or All) - I believe your current Display settings say "Most Popular".

Its on Availability. Changing to other options doesn't help either.

I too face a similar situation as narrated below:
My IM client has ~50 people online (busy,available or away), but the gtalk in android shows merely around 10 contacts inclusive of contacts in busy, available or away status while using the 'Availability' option.
Setting to show all contacts will show the enormous list in Alphabetical order. Scrolling to find friends in this list is a difficult task!
It was noted that only the most popular friends are shown while using the 'Availability' option.
Is this the same issue that you observed? Try searching the contact name that you find available in IM client but not in Android. It will be shown as available.
I first suspected that Android shows only from Google+ friends list, but no. Its not even a bug. Its just that they donot have an option to show all the available list!! Instead they come up with "Recently chatted available list" and "most popular available list". Hope they add a new option or fix this.
I am facing this issue in IceCreamSandwitch on Motorola Razr

They should have a hide offline contacts option. Then, we can keep the Display option to Show all.


text:
How to connect laptop to internet via Galaxy S2?
I am traveling with my notebook and I want to connect to the internet using my cellphone data connection.  I have a Galaxy S2, and I've set up a portable Wi-Fi hotspot, which my laptop successfully connects to.  But thereafter I cannot connect to the internet.  Can't browse, ping, nothing.  All I can ping is the gateway (which I presume is my droid).
Is there some secret switch I'm missing?

Are you sure your carrier isn't restricting tethering?

@onik - could be, but it's no longer relevant - I managed to get it working with a USB cable and that sufficed for my needs.

Turned out I wasn't being patient enough.  It took a little while for my phone to realize it needed to connect to data services; after that the tethering worked fine.  It helped for me to open my email on my phone, just to give it a little nudge.

Depending on your carrier, FoxFi may help you out. It allows you to share you mobile data plan as a WiFi hot spot. Just be careful not to use too much or your carrier will get suspicious.

Usually your service provider has to activate the ability to use your cellphone as a hotspot.  For Sprint, there is a monthly fee associated with that feature.


text:
How to connect an android device to a VPN?
I have Xperia mini running ICS 4.0.3. I want to connect to a VPN for which I have server address(host) , group name, group passwrod(pre-shared key). but I still couldn't connect to it via my Xperia mini where as the VPN is able to connect in desktop. I have tried in IPsec PSK.

There is more than one type of VPN (IPsec and SSLVPN are two of the major protocols) and the way some VPN vendors use VPN makes it very hard to connect to them using anything other than their own client. Do you know what VPN brand and protocol it is that you're trying to connect to?

I am using cisco VPN client and IPsec/UDP protocol to connect to the VPN in my System.

If your company is licensed for it, Cisco's AnyConnect ICS+ should work for you. Alternatively, ICS should support the correct configuration out of the box, but not all vendors have implemented this properly.
If you can't get it to work correctly using ICS's IPSEC support, you can try VPNC Widget, but it requires root, and if your phone doesn't have the TUN module built-in, it won't work.


text:
No data connection for 2G/3G on Xperia U
I have a Sony Xperia U. I had some problems with 2G/3G data connection when I bought it. After some configuration, power off/power, removing and reinserting SIM, things went all right.
Now I've updated the OS and I have the same problem. I've set the APN, then activated the data connection, but I do not see the H/E/G symbol to tell that the data connection is active. I've verified, and have the data traffic for my subscription.

How can I verify if the APN configuration is good? If there is an APN problem will I have the described behaviour?
Is there some way to do some more troubleshooting? I read logs (with aLog) but didn't find anything?
Is there any configuration/procedure to fix the problem?

Some update:
Network operator is French SFR (sometimes disappointing I must say).
So I managed to take a look at logs (using adb).
Main log:
I/ActivityManager( 1737): Starting: Intent { flg=0x18000000 cmp=com.android.phon
e/.DataTrafficSwitchDialog } from pid 1879
V/DataTrafficSwitchDialog( 1879): isDataTrafficEnabled? false
D/dalvikvm( 1879): GC_CONCURRENT freed 944K, 49% free 3585K/6983K, external 3880
K/4099K, paused 13ms+6ms
I/ActivityManager( 1737): Displayed com.android.phone/.DataTrafficSwitchDialog:
+404ms (total +13s268ms)
W/ActivityManager( 1737): Duplicate finish request for HistoryRecord{409aae38 co
m.android.phone/.DataTrafficSwitchDialog}
W/InputManagerService( 1737): Window already focused, ignoring focus gain of: co
m.android.internal.view.IInputMethodClient$Stub$Proxy@40a0bc20
W/ActivityManager( 1737): Duplicate finish request for HistoryRecord{409aae38 co
m.android.phone/.DataTrafficSwitchDialog}
I/TelephonyRegistry( 1737): notifyDataConnection: state=0 isDataConnectivityPoss
ible=false reason=apnSwitched interfaceName=null networkType=3
I/TelephonyRegistry( 1737): notifyDataConnection: state=1 isDataConnectivityPoss
ible=true reason=apnSwitched interfaceName=null networkType=3
D/Tethering( 1737): gprs0 is not a tetherable iface, ignoring
V/kernel  ( 1481): [  801.811279] gprs0: attached
V/kernel  ( 1481): [  803.178894] gprs0: detached
E/Tethering( 1737): attempting to remove unknown iface (gprs0), ignoring
I/TelephonyRegistry( 1737): notifyDataConnection: state=0 isDataConnectivityPoss
ible=false reason=apnFailed interfaceName=null networkType=3
D/GTalkService( 1869): ##### Network broadcast (connected=false) type=mobile, st
ate=DISCONNECTED
D/Tethering( 1737): MasterInitialState.processMessage what=3
D/PicasaSyncManager( 2906): active network: null
I/MediaUploader( 3052): No need to wake up
D/PicasaSyncManager( 2906): background data: true
I/fb_music_like( 3071): AvailabilityChangeReceiver : Availability change receive
d. Action: android.net.conn.CONNECTIVITY_CHANGE
I/fb_music_like( 3071): AvailabilityChangeReceiver : Network connectivity change
 received. No connectivity: true
I/fb_music_like( 3071): MusicLikeService.onCreate().
I/fb_music_like( 3071): MusicLikeService.onStart(): #1 intent=Intent { act=andro
id.net.conn.CONNECTIVITY_CHANGE cmp=com.sonyericsson.androidapp.fbmusiclike/.ser
vice.MusicLikeService (has extras) }, flags=2
I/fb_music_like( 3071): fireAvailabilityChanged(): available=true
I/fb_music_like( 3071): isNetworkAvailable: EXTRA_NO_CONNECTIVITY found!
I/fb_music_like( 3071): fireAvailabilityChanged(): available=false
I/fb_music_like( 3071): Starting downloading music likes from Facebook.
E/fb_music_like( 3071): downloadMusicLikes: false -> Value false of type java.la
ng.Boolean cannot be converted to JSONObject
W/fb_music_like( 3071): Get Error Code: 0 Error message: request failed
I/fb_music_like( 3071): MusicLikeService.onDestroy().
D/dalvikvm( 3062): GC_EXPLICIT freed 31K, 47% free 2878K/5379K, external 1681K/2
129K, paused 44ms
I/touchd  ( 1503): 'ab8500_usb' is online
I/touchd  ( 1503): handling_uevent: event is 1
D/kernel  ( 1481): [  810.299896] cyttsp-spi spi9.0: chg_status_work: Set charge
r mode to reg: 0x1
D/dalvikvm( 3071): GC_EXPLICIT freed 87K, 48% free 2818K/5379K, external 1681K/2
129K, paused 54ms

Radio log ( logcat -b radio ):
D/GSM     ( 1879): [GsmDataConnection-1] DcInactiveState nothandled msg.what=6
D/GSM     ( 1879): [GsmDataConnection-1] DcDefaultState: msg.what=EVENT_DISCONNE
CT
D/GSM     ( 1879): [GsmDataConnection-1] NotifyDisconnectCompleted
D/GSM     ( 1879): [GsmDataConnection-1] msg.what=25 msg.obj=apnSwitched
D/GSM     ( 1879): [GsmDataConnection-1] clearSettings
D/GSM     ( 1879): [DataConnection] Stop poll NetStat
D/GSM     ( 1879): [DSAC DEB] trySetupData with mIsPsRestricted=false
I/GSM     ( 1879): Preferred APN:20810:20810:[ApnSettingV2] SFR, 3, 20810, wapsf
r, 195.115.25.129, , , , 8080, -1, *, IP, IP
I/GSM     ( 1879): Waiting APN set to preferred APN
D/GSM     ( 1879): [GsmDataConnectionTracker] Create from allApns : [[ApnSetting
V2] SFR, 3, 20810, wapsfr, 195.115.25.129, , , , 8080, -1, *, IP, IP]
D/GSM     ( 1879): [GsmDataConnection-1] DcInactiveState msg.what=EVENT_CONNECT
D/GSM     ( 1879): [GsmDataConnection-1] Connecting to carrier: 'SFR' APN: 'waps
fr' proxy: '195.115.25.129' port: '8080
D/RILJ    ( 1879): [0173]> SETUP_DATA_CALL 1 0 wapsfr   0 IP
I/RILV    ( 1473): processRequest: SETUP_DATA_CALL
I/RILV    ( 1473): requestSetupDataCall() selected new Connection ID (1) and Int
erface Name (rmnet0)
E/RILVAT  ( 1473): --- AT+CGDCONT=1,"ip","wapsfr",""
I/RILVAT  ( 1473): AT(12)> AT+CGDCONT=1,"ip","wapsfr",""
I/AT      ( 1520): request_set_PDP_context: -> request
I/AT      ( 1520): psccclient_iadb_set: Setting psccclient_iadb_field_use_rel_97
_qos to 0
I/AT      ( 1520): set_default_req_qos_parameters: Default qos for cid =1
I/AT      ( 1520): set_default_qos_2G_parameters: Default 2G qos for cid =1
E/RILVAT  ( 1473): --- AT*EIAAUW=1,1,"","",001,0
I/RILVAT  ( 1473): AT(12)> AT*EIAAUW=1,1,"","",001,0
I/AT      ( 1520): request_set_PDP_auth: EXE_STATE_REQUEST
E/RILVAT  ( 1473): --- AT*EPPSD=1,1,1
I/RILVAT  ( 1473): AT(12)> AT*EPPSD=1,1,1
I/AT      ( 1520): request_activate_PDP_context: EXE_STATE_REQUEST
I/AT      ( 1520): request_activate_PDP_context: connection id: 1 ignored
I/AT      ( 1520): add_client_tag_and_connid_to_request: (pscc): CT=446 connId=0

I/AT      ( 1520): exe_pscc_setup_data_call: EXE_STATE_SETUP_DATA_CALL_CREATE
I/AT      ( 1520): add_client_tag_and_connid_to_request: (pscc): CT=446 connId=1
000
I/AT      ( 1520): exe_pscc_setup_data_call: EXE_STATE_SETUP_DATA_CALL_SET
I/AT      ( 1520): add_client_tag_and_connid_to_request: (pscc): CT=446 connId=1
000
W/RIL PSCC( 1515): psccd_log_func: no successful response of aol configuration h
as been received, so aol might not work!
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::->GPDS_CONTEXT_ID_CREATE_REQ
W/RIL PSCC( 1515): psccd_log_func: state change: disconnected->connecting
I/AT      ( 1520): exe_pscc_setup_data_call: EXE_STATE_SETUP_DATA_CALL_CONNECT
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::entered gpds_lib_response_handler
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::<-GPDS_CONTEXT_ID_CREATE_RESP
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::PIPE state CREATED
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::->GPDS_LL_CONFIGURE_REQ
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::entered gpds_lib_response_handler
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::<-GPDS_CONTEXT_ID_CREATE_IND
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::entered gpds_lib_response_handler
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::<-GPDS_LL_CONFIGURE_RESP
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::Local link Config done to PLAIN mode
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::->GPDS_CONTEXT_CONFIGURE_REQ
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::entered gpds_lib_response_handler
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::<-GPDS_CONTEXT_CONFIGURE_RESP
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::PDP Context Configured
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::->GPDS_CONTEXT_ACTIVATE_REQ
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::entered gpds_lib_response_handler
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::<-GPDS_CONTEXT_ACTIVATING_IND
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::PDP Context Activating
W/RIL PSCC( 1515): psccd_log_func: pscc_bearer_event_activating
W/RIL PSCC( 1515): psccd_log_func: Sending event: pscc.message=event_connecting,
pscc.message_type=event,pscc.connid=1000
I/AT      ( 1520): psccclient_selector_callback_event: received event 26
I/AT      ( 1520): psccclient_selector_callback_event: CONNID Present
I/AT      ( 1520): psccclient_selector_callback_event: Setting event to record
I/AT      ( 1520): exe_pscc_setup_data_call: EXE_STATE_SETUP_DATA_CALL_CONNECTIN
G
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::entered gpds_lib_response_handler
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::<-GPDS_CONTEXT_ACTIVATE_RESP
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::msg id is GPDS_CONTEXT_ACTIVATE_RESP, hence not doi
ng proceed for activation
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::GPDS_Context Activate FAILED
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::Cause 21
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::PIPE disconnected
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::entered gpds_lib_response_handler
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::<-GPDS_CONTEXT_ACTIVATE_FAIL_IND
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::PDP Context Activation Failed
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::entered gpds_lib_response_handler
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::<-Unhandled MSG-ID 5a
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::entered gpds_lib_response_handler
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::<-GPDS_CONTEXT_STATUS_IND
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::PDP Context 0 Status
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::entered gpds_lib_response_handler
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::<-GPDS_CONTEXT_ID_DELETE_IND
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::PDP Context 0 Deleted
W/RIL PSCC( 1515): psccd_log_func: pscc_bearer_event_deactivated reason=1, cause
=33
W/RIL PSCC( 1515): psccd_log_func: state change: connecting->disconnected
W/RIL PSCC( 1515): psccd_log_func: Sending event: pscc.message=event_disconnecte
d,pscc.message_type=event,pscc.pdp_type=ipv4,pscc.reason=pdp_context_activation_
failed,pscc.cause=33,pscc.connid=1000
I/AT      ( 1520): psccclient_selector_callback_event: received event 29
I/AT      ( 1520): psccclient_selector_callback_event: CONNID Present
I/AT      ( 1520): psccclient_selector_callback_event: Setting event to record
I/AT      ( 1520): exe_pscc_setup_data_call: EXE_STATE_SETUP_DATA_CALL_DISCONNEC
TED
I/AT      ( 1520): add_client_tag_and_connid_to_request: (pscc): CT=446 connId=1
000
I/RIL_MAL ( 1515): GPDS_LIB::Removed pipe 33
I/AT      ( 1520): exe_pscc_setup_data_call: EXE_STATE_SETUP_DATA_CALL_DESTROY
I/AT      ( 1520): pscc_request_setup_data_call_scenario_1_step_12_13_14_receive
_pscc_destroy_response: executing in synchronous mode
E/AT      ( 1520): exe_check: Failure in file: vendor/st-ericsson/access_service
s/at/at_core_common/internal/executor/pscc/src/exe_pscc_requests.c       line: 5
52
E/AT      ( 1520): exe_check: Failure in file: vendor/st-ericsson/access_service
s/at/at_core_common/internal/executor/pscc/src/exe_pscc_requests.c       line: 3
292
E/AT      ( 1520): psccclient_selector_callback_request: request returned unsucc
essfully, failed!
E/RILVAT  ( 1473): --- AT+CEER
I/RILVAT  ( 1473): AT(12)> AT+CEER
I/AT      ( 1520): request_ceer: request_ceer
E/RILV    ( 1473): PDP Context Activate failed with SM Cause Code 33
D/RILV    ( 1473): requestSetupDataCall() errorhandler: Trying to remove account
 1
E/RILVAT  ( 1473): --- AT+CGDCONT=1
I/RILVAT  ( 1473): AT(12)> AT+CGDCONT=1
I/AT      ( 1520): request_set_PDP_context: -> request
D/RILV    ( 1473): requestSetupDataCall() errorhandler: Trying to unreserve list
 entry
D/RILJ    ( 1879): [0173]< SETUP_DATA_CALL error: com.android.internal.telephony
.CommandException: GENERIC_FAILURE
D/GSM     ( 1879): [GsmDataConnection-1] DcActivatingState msg.what=EVENT_SETUP_
DATA_CONNECTION_DONE
D/GSM     ( 1879): [GsmDataConnection-1] DataConnection Init failed com.android.
internal.telephony.CommandException: GENERIC_FAILURE
D/GSM     ( 1879): [GsmDataConnection-1] DataConnection setup result='Other erro
r' on cid=-1
D/RILJ    ( 1879): [0174]> LAST_DATA_CALL_FAIL_CAUSE
I/RILV    ( 1473): processRequest: LAST_DATA_CALL_FAIL_CAUSE
D/RILJ    ( 1879): [0174]< LAST_DATA_CALL_FAIL_CAUSE {33}
D/GSM     ( 1879): [GsmDataConnection-1] DcActivatingState msg.what=EVENT_GET_LA
ST_FAIL_DONE
D/GSM     ( 1879): [GsmDataConnection-1] DcInactiveState: setEnterNoticationPara
ms cp,cause
D/GSM     ( 1879): [GsmDataConnection-1] DcInactiveState: enter notifyConnectCom
pleted
D/GSM     ( 1879): [GsmDataConnection-1] notifyConnection at 1344278549550 cause
=Data Not subscribed
D/STK     ( 1879): BipProxy$DefaultBearerStateReceiver: onReceive(): Intent is :
  android.net.conn.CONNECTIVITY_CHANGE
D/STK     ( 1879): BipProxy$DefaultBearerStateReceiver: BIP network state : CONN
ECTIVITY_ACTION disconnected
D/STK     ( 1879): BipProxy$DefaultBearerStateReceiver: onDisconnected
I/RILV    ( 1473): onUnsolicited: +CIEV: 2,96
I/RILV    ( 1473): onUnsolicited: +CIEV: 2,90

Maybe the problem is PDP Context Activation Failed ?

My service provider has three APNs. One for MMS, another for their own portal access called 'live' and the third for Internet access.  Only if the third is selected I am able to connect to Internet.  I am not sure why, sometimes my default APN is set to 'live' on start up and it results in breaking my head about the same problem. I accidentally found this and I had to manually switch to the third APN to make Internet to work. Check whether you have this problem.

@Narayana123@123.com There is only on internet connection APN and one MMS APN, but the MMS one can't be selected (this is normal I guess).

Turns out the problem was actually wrong APN configuration. I configured the device using netowork operator automatic config mechanism, but turns out the parameters sent by the operator itself were wrong. Phone call to customer care solved the issue.


text:
How to hide the top page navigation on tablet home screen?
I am a new user of Galaxy Tab and I noticed in comparison with some other home tab screen-shots in another forum, that my tab is the only who has the top page navigation squares shown.
I have only one page like the image below and my question is how can I hide that square too? I am running ICS.

Maybe try an alternative home launcher than the stock one? What you're seeing is probably part of Samsung's version of the home launcher.

@BryanDenny the truth is that this is the stock rom. Can you give me a clue about the home launchers please ?

On Android the home screen (a.k.a. "Launcher") is just another app.  There are a myriad of replacements available for download on the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=launcher+replacement+-theme&c=apps  Some are free, some are paid.  You can have as many installed as you wish, and set one of them as default (it will ask you when you first open it.)

@Kaoukkos what Chahk said... you can replace just about any app in Android, including the actual "home launcher". When you install one and then press your "home" button, it will ask you which launcher you want to use (and set as default).

My Asus Transformer Prime (ICS) has the same top bar -- Google search at the left, screen index in the center, and "all apps" icon at the right, so that is probably standard ICS behavior.   I had to double-check on mine, I hadn't noticed the dots in the middle, as my background photo is very light in that area.

As noted in the comments - this is just the launcher you are running.
There are many different launchers you can try which may look slightly or completely different.
Some good launchers to try are:

Chameleon
GO Launcher
Nova Launcher
TSF Shell

Also I'm recommend to look on ADW Launcher.


text:
Titanium backup shortcut/widget to toggle app freeze
My CyanogenMod 7.2 stock browser refuses to remember its defaults. I've taken to freezing opera mini, my other browser, with Titanium backup when I want to use stock to avoid all the preferred app prompts.
I'd like a faster, more convenient way to toggle the freeze. Is it possible to create a shortcut or widget on the home screen to perform this action?

Titanium Backup itself offers the corresponding Widgets:

long-press on a free space on your homescreen
select to add a widget
select Titanium Backup
select Action
select one of

deactivate App
activate & execute App
toggle (de)activate App

select the app
tap the "create widget" button

That makes a lot of sense. However, Titanium Backup is not in my list of widgets. Could it be a result of installing TB from an apk rather than from Google Play? The apk is the first thing I installed after a ROM upgrade.

Not sure. I checked this with my installation and it worked -- and I also installed it from SD card. But since then, there have been multiple updates applied via the ma.. ahem playstore. Is your TB "in sync" with the market? If not, TB has a "market doctor" to fix that. Then update to the latest version from there, and check again.

Market Doctor doesn't show Titanium Backup as linkable. I just updated the app from Google Play though, the widget option is still not available.

That is strange -- I just did it. But wait: Are you using the free or the pro version? Maybe that's Pro only.

I have pro as well. The widget option is available now after a complete uninstall and reinstall from Google Play.

Ah -- great! Glad it worked out for you as well, finally! Hav to keep that "complete re-install" in mind, just in case. Thanks for pointing this out!


text:
How do I know if the person I'm chatting to on Google Talk is using Android?
On the Gingerbread version of Google Talk, I can see a gray-ish silhouette of the Android logo on my contact. Now on ICS, I can't see it anymore, thus, prevents me from knowing if a certain person on my contact is on mobile or not. Is there a setting that I'm missing here? How do I know if my contact is on Android or not?

Essentially, you can't. This feature was removed from the 4.0 version of Google Talk, and is discussed somewhat in the Android Police review of the changes from 2.3 to 4.0. There's no setting that will bring back the icons.
However, when you have a chat open with someone (provided that they do not have a custom status message set) it will inform you at the top if they are on a mobile device:

My hunch would be that Google doesn't really want you to care about this when you're on your phone. They want the Google Talk app to be as seamless and integrated as possible, and they want you to use it regardless of what device the other person happens to be connected with at the time.

Google Talk behaves extremely well with you being signed in at multiple devices concurrently, so the mobile indicator doesn't really mean much when you're signed in in both.

The reason why I am looking for such feature is because I often use it to check if a family member or a friend is on mobile (meaning not in front of the computer) or not. I hope there are tweaks or mods to bring back this useful feature.


text:
How to partition SD card in HTC One X?
I was trying to create ext2/ext3/ext4 partitions on the SD card. I tried ClockworkMod recovery and it didn't work. Nothing seems to have happened.
I also tried using MiniTool and that also failed. I tried both Disk Utility and GParted in Ubuntu and it still didn't work. For MiniTool, Disk Utility, and GParted, after I finished partitioning the partitions showed up on the computer OK, but when USB's disconnected the One X says that the SD card's corrupted.
Has anybody done this? Or is there some other way to solve this?
Or maybe it's not possible because the SD card is built-in?
Thanks!

After some more playing around, it seems that the problem might be something related to a partition table.
When there's no partition table, it works fine, but after I add a partition table it seems that the phone can't recognize the SD card anymore.

I think this post provides some information about it. It also seems to be consistent with what I've tried.
Instead of partitioning the SD card, mounting an .img with a ext4 filesystem is a simple workaround.


text:
Which music players support DAAP?
Which music players support DAAP? I can only find:

DAAP Media Player
SharePlay

Does anyone know any others? I really don't understand why the popular music players don't support DAAP. I want to be able to stream my mp3 from my NAS to my phone :(

There are some available from Google Play Store. Excluding the ones you've mentioned, this two I've used, and they worked very well:

Music Pump DAAP Player by Android Music Pump:

Music Pump is a feature rich Android DAAP Client that lets you to stream and sync music from your PC or NAS to your android device. All you need is a DAAP Server.

Remote for SoundBridge by Martin Kompf:

Connect to different music servers including UPnP, DAAP, and Internet radio.
Browse playlists, artists, composers, albums, songs, genres, and folders at music server.

DAAP is developed by Apple, and they don't license it to Android devices. The handful of players you found have reverse engineered the DAAP protocol (or an older version thereof), but no 'official' publisher can publish it with permission of Apple.

Wikipedia has a list of DAAP clients for all platforms.


text:
Something is secretly eating up my Acer Iconia A500 internal memory and I need help finding it
I've been a happy owner of an Acer Iconia A500 for a bit over a year now but a couple of weeks ago it started to complain about its internal memory being full.
I was a bit surprised as I keep movies, and such on the external SD card but I assumed is was some browser cache, Maps or so which had eaten up a fair chunk of the 32G memory it has internally.
However, that doesn't seem to be the case. I have cleared the data of almost every single App I have installed but still if I look at the Storage tab of the settings I see the following (a couple of hours ago):

I get the feeling that the rightmost grey part of the bar should be a bit more than 379MB(the Available part)... (SD Card at the bottom of the picture is the external one, never mind that one).
I've tried almost every disk usage app available out there and they all show similar results, the following is DiskView (picture taken after I removed a few apps):

(in this picture "SD Card" is the internal one...)
One thing all the disk usage apps seems to have in common is that unless the device is rooted, they cannot see what is in some directories (like /data) which makes me think it is either Android itself (4.0.3 on this device) which has some kind of cache which is misbehaving or that some process is producing extreme amounts of logs somewhere.
Sorry for this long intro, but the basic question is: How do I proceed?
I guess one alternative is to find what is worth backing up and do a factory reset or something but I wold really like to find out what happened first.
Rooting it is an alternative which would probably help me find out more but I sort of like it as it is (except for this issue). If it is needed to resolve it I could of course do it but it feels like you shouldn't have to with an appliance like this.
Is there another way forward? I have this naive hope that there is a button somewhere I haven't seen that clears all logs or reduce the log level from debug to info.
Edit: One thing I've been considering but cannot investigate is if it could be cores. I've had a lot of crashes lately (presumably because it has been running low on disk).
In response to Izzy's comment below. Apps adds up to more or less exactly the 700MB listed as "Apps" (seems to be the total of data and the apps themselves).

let us continue this discussion in chat

For finding where my storage is going, I like DiskUsage. It has no trouble digging into the /data directory. (Which is how I know most of my storage is being used by cached Google Music files.)

@AlEverett It sees the same files as the others. Whatever this is, it is something outside what a non-rooted device gives you access to.

This looks like the Acer GPS-log leak we had on an Acer Iconia A200:

The bottom line is that when the GPS is used, the GPS driver for ICS
  4.0.3 on the Acer A-series tablets apparently writes numerous gl-YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS.txt files into the /data/gps directory. The files
  are apparently not automatically deleted, and so over time will
  consume most of the internal storage space.

Users can not delete these files without root access.
However, there is a patch  to clear the GPS log data (no root access needed, so no warranty voided).

download the patch from the Acer drivers site (to your desktop)
unzip and copy the contained Update.zip from it to an empty, FAT32 formatted microSD card.  (We uploaded it to an already present card in the connected tablet, which wasn't empty, but it still worked.)
(Re)start the tablet with the microSD card in it, while holding the “Volume Down” key until a message appears in the upper left corner of the screen.  (Something like Erasing cache before SD update...; I interpret this message as: "erase and update", so it should cure the symptom and the cause.)
The tablet will continue to start up afterwards (less than a minute), and you will be good to go.

There is a nice .pdf in the download, describing the above steps in detail with (screen)shots. (It also talks about an accompanying user_cleanGPSlog text file, but we didn't have it and did not seem to need it.)

Thank you! You're not saying anything about it so I assume the upgrade is relatively safe to do and will normally not wipe the tablet?

@Fredrik: the documentation does not mention wiping any data (but the logs) and we did not notice anything getting removed. But my friend (I am sort of the involuntary system administrator...) mainly uses it for browsing and gaming, so there is no major storage of media, etc. going on. (And of course we already removed a lot of cache, data and apps, before finding the cause and the patch). However, I do not know all the data that could have been stored/lost, so I can't tell for sure. But it looked pretty safe.

Here are some key points to this problem. Though not all of them applied in this case, I will still include all of them -- as in another case they might prove helpful:

A good starting point to check is apps -> manage apps in Androids system menu, which lists all apps+data and can be sorted by size, to identify the "biggest consumers". While here, you can "delete" too-big caches (per app)
some directories in the file system cannot be investigated without having root privileges, so the preferred du -k|sort -n (to find the biggest files) would e.g. skip directories below /data
still, having a terminal emulator available (Android Terminal Emulator would be a good candidate), at least a df -h could show where free space goes toward zero (see screenshot below). In case the -h parameter ("human readable") is not understood on your system, you might try to replace it by -m ("megabytes"), -k ("kilobytes"), or omit it completely.
The article Debugging Android core dumps describes "core dumps" under Android are called "Tombstones", and stored globally as /data/tombstones/tombstone_nn, with "nn" simply being a counter. As many crashes were reported, this might be a place "filling up" (see below). But only 2.5MB could be located here in this case.
According to Android Forensics by Andrew Hoog, it might be worth diving into /data/local: The “/data/local” directory is important as it allows shell (the user account nonrooted phones run adbd as) read/write access. When an app is installed, it is first copied to “/data/local.” Which means, even on non-rooted devices one should be able to dig in here.
SD Maid - System cleaning tool might find some more orphans -- but without root access, this apps capabilities are limited.
If the "big egg" cannot be found and removed, one can either start to uninstall some apps, cleaning "big data" from others (see first step), or, as a last resort, there always remains the factory-reset which should clean up everything -- but be aware: all your downloaded apps and all your data (on internal storage only, of course -- SD card will not be affected) will get removed as well when you do this.
if still unable to solve the issue, a last resort is a factory reset. But before doing that it would be good to be prepared for the next time, so one last chance are a few steps immediately before the factory reset:

backup as much data/apps as you need and can
switch to airplane mode -- the market must not know what we are doing now
one by one, uninstall your apps (for system apps which cannot be uninstalled: uninstall their updates, clear cache and data). After each uninstall, check your free space for unexpected "big jumps". If such a "jump" happens: Note the app uninstalled at this place -- it has to be a/the evil one. Continue if it still doesn't make up for the missing space
when finished with the last one, go to the "point of no return", pull the plug, do the factory reset. It's over now ;(
after the reboot, re-configure your "virgin device" with your original market account data (you remember them hopefully?). As we made sure the market stood uninformed of our actions from step 2 on, you should now be able to re-sync your apps and some data. The apps for sure, the data only provided you synced them with the market before step 2.
keep an eye on the "evil app(s)", if you detected any at step 3. You may want to remove these (now or later).

The following screenshot shows the output of df -h on a Motorola Droid 2. As you can see, there are 2 mount points on internal storage which could be candidates for "getting filled": /data (the most likely -- and got the hit in this case) plus /cache. The command was executed without root privileges:

Tombstones: The folder's location is /data/tombstones. Permissions of the /data directory are drwxrwxr-x, the tombstones subdirectory has drwxr-xr-x -- so they are accessible also on non-rooted devices. Using a terminal emulator (see above), you can cd /data/tombstones and do a ls -l to see whether there are any tombstones, and what size they occupy. Unfortunately, all tombstones are owned by system, and permissions are set to rwx------ -- so if that's your troublemaker: you cannot remove them without root :( Have a good backup (huh? how, without root?), and probably a factory-reset will be your last resort...

Seems like /data is where it is all used... 26 out of 27G used... Currently 467M free... I just need to figure out with what :-)

Just come over and join, I've created a room: http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/4403/tombstones

Thanks for all the good pointers... I didn't really get anywhere except closer to realizing a real backup and a factory reset is probably my best bet. Thanks again.

You are very welcome! Before doing the reset it would be good to figure out which app was "guilty". For this, I'd recommend: Airplane Mode (to keep the market uninformed), then uninstall all apps one-by-one and check everytime for "signs and portents". With some luck you figure out -- for the next time. Due to the "uninformed market" you should be able to "simply resync your apps + some data" after the factory reset, as the market does not know about the uninstalls.

@Fredrik I updated my answer with the steps proposed in my last comment. You might want to check the item with the numbered list within.

I somehow suspect it is Market/Google Play which is behind all this... With the now 500M free memory, the only time it falls back to some 200M is when Market has been out checking for updates and failed updating (because of low memory it claims, but I doubt 500M wouldn't be enough for an 3,5M update).

That would be a heavy issue -- we're talking about several Gigabytes missing. You will find out about it in the "burial" process: Coming to the market app in step 3, uninstall its updates and clear its cache/data (as you cannot uninstall the app itself), and you will see...

It doesn't have much cache registered... I assumed it did something else, like unjar/unzip of the apk somewhere and then bailed out with an exception and forgot to clean it up when it failed installing. If it tries again and again and again it could add up. But I have no proofs, it just feels like the main suspect :-)

@Fredrik makes sense (that summing up) but for one thing: temp stuff should belong to /tmp which is tmpfs and thus doesn't survive a boot. But that would mean Google sticks to its own rules -- and we see with the sync settings a.o. how much they do (best known violators come from Google Labs, e.g. Latitude). If your suspicion proves true, gains from uninstalls should be marginal. But what still irritates me is your screenshots showing up ~90% free (used on internal only sums up to ~2,1G there).

Irritates me as well, a lot :-)

If you updated CM than check /data/media/clockworkmod/backup There are automatically generated backups that take up a very large chunk of space.

I had this same problem with my Acer A100 tablet and found the source of the problem: there's a folder located in /data/gps that fills up with txt files. Mine was 4.3G. If your device is rooted, you can delete them from a terminal emulator or adb and reclaim your space:
$ su
# cd /data/gps
# rm gl-*.txt

Thanks, I wasn't rooted so it wouldn't have helped me then. Good to know for the future though...

Yeah, if you're not rooted, the only option is to do a factory reset. You can temporarily root and then revert back, too. The hardest part of rooting is probably getting the ADB driver installed and working on your computer.

I rarely use GPS on mine but after reading this I used ES File Explorer I found a file named data/GPS and found hundreds or possibly a thousand files that showed 0 data so I deled them all and went from approximately 300Mb. of free space to over 4 gigs of free space.

Dan, it doesn't matter if you make use of the GPS or not: this particular device seems to just collect files in that folder regardless.

@Dan: there is a patch from Acer.  See my answer

First delete the .thumbnail folder within your DCIM directory, then switch of the device and turn back on. This solved the problem for me.

I think the thumbnails was one of the first things I deleted. Unfortunately it didn't eat up much of those missing 30G.


text:
Trigger WiFi hotspot based on known WiFi availability or location
I have a HTC One XL and a Nexus 7. They both know my home WiFi network and a few other networks, and my Nexus knows my HTC's WiFi hotspot as well. When I'm out and about I press my hotspot widget on my HTC to enable the WiFi hotspot, which allows my Nexus to automatically connect and get online.
What I'd like is a way to

use a known WiFi network if available (to save battery and mobile data), and
otherwise automatically turns on WiFi hotspot mode
can be WiFi based or location based

This will allow me to use the Nexus 7 wherever I am, without having to take out my HTC and flick the hotspot switch. At the same time I'd like the Nexus to prioritise other known networks over the hotspot, so that if possible it drops off the hotspot network and uses the known network.
Searching for anything containing 'WiFi hotspot' returns dozens of apps to get around carrier imposed hotspot restriction, so I am not having much success there.

You can do all this using Tasker. It may not be free, and the interface may look dated but it does all this and so much more. You'll never go back to anything else once you get things setup the way you want.
This is honestly the best, and most useful app on my personal phone.

While I agree (using Tasker for quite a while know), could you please elaborate on how you detect "known (trusted) Wifi available" with Tasker -- without configuring each network manually via "connected" "cells near" (so it automatically works when you added a new network)? I'm confused as how to get Tasker to switch Wifi on without configuring each Wifi explicitly.

While I agree with Matt on the usefulness of Tasker, as to my current knowledge you'd have to configure all your Wifi zones manually here based on their location (e.g. via "Cell Near", which leverages cell tower information and does not use much battery as the current cell is either known to the system, or via network-based or GPS location). If you one day add a new Wifi, you had to manually add it to Tasker as well -- if not somebody has found a way to automate this.
So I want to additionally introduce Smart WiFi, which automatically does that part of the job: As soon as you connect to a Wifi, it records the corresponding cell tower IDs. Next time one of them comes in reach, Wifi will be turned on automatically. So you then could use a tool like Tasker to kick in on the "Wifi off" condition to enable your Hotspot functionality, and disable this again as soon as Smart Wifi enabled Wifi again.
Also agreed with Matt: Once you've got to understand Tasker, you will not want to miss it again -- it's such a powerful tool. Concerning its price: There's a 7-day trial available at the Tasker homepage. You can export its configuration, and uninstall and re-install the trial for another 7-day-period (as described by its developer) and import your configuration again, which gives you at least 14 days to get familiar with this app. You certainly won't regret it.


text:
How to enable NFC on Galaxy Note I717 for lockscreen/screen off use?
The Note I717 running Paranoid ICS and makes everything except the S-Pen great -- except I can't quite figure out how to enable NFC for use on the lock screen/screen off modes.
I see plenty of people doing this and it appears to require a software mod of some kind. How can I get this rigged up on the I717?

This might be disabled by default for security reasons,  just FYI.

Security, battery, whatnot... that's fine and dandy. Still eager to do it despite the security implications. Thank you for the thought ce4 :-)

That remark was just meant as a note :-) You might get tracked, someone could launch things (e.g. the browser with a nfc provided URL and so on). Not wanting to prevent you doing it here.


text:
Exchange sync "Incorrect user name or password"
I am trying to connect a Samsung Galaxy S3 to an Exchange 2010 server for a client but it's causing me quite some grief. iPhones are connecting to this Exchange server without issue.
I receive the error message:
Incorrect user name or password

The following account details have been entered:
Domain\user name: clientdomain\username
Exchange server: mail.clientdomain.com.au
Use SSL: Have tried ticked & unticked
Can someone please help? I have Googled high & low lookingh for an answer but without any luck.


text:
Forgot my Android Login Pattern

Possible Duplicate:
Recovering from forgotten lock pattern

I am using  Samsung Galaxy Y Duos S6102 i forgot my login pattern and there is no reset Option  on the screen. Is there any option to unlock it.

You should be able to unlock with your Google credentials after a number of failed unlock attempts. At that point, you will be prompted to enter username and password of the "master account" (i.e. the main Google account) this device was registered with. Entered correctly, it will then prompt you to define a new lock pattern.


text:
I keep getting alerted regarding unread Facebook messages even though there is none
My phone beeps and tells me I have an unread Facebook message even though I don't. I've got a hunch what the source of the problem is. I have both the Facebook app and the Friend Caster app and they are connected to different Facebook accounts (one's for work one's for my personal life). Is there way I can stop getting these false "new message" alerts?
I want both my Facebook accounts on my phone because then all the contact numbers get pulled off both accounts. If anyone can think of a better way I'm open.

It looks like Friend Caster is considered end of life so that may be the problem. Facebook apparently made changes to their api, so it has been discontinued. Source https://support.onelouder.com/hc/en-us/articles/204558634-What-Happened-to-FriendCaster-
You should be able to have 1 account on the app and one on the preferred web browser, or you could go the route this page talks about https://android.gadgethacks.com/how-to/set-up-two-different-facebook-accounts-one-android-device-0161254/
There are probably other workarounds but these are the ones I found with a quick google search.


text:
Import SMSes from Nokia 6300
I want to transfer all SMSes from my old phone Nokia 6300 to Philips W626. I have tried several tools but all of them failed. Does anybody know tested way to do it?

Finally I was able to import SMSes using SMS Importer Lite. This post was very helpful to make it work. It was required to configure SMS Importer this way:

Source type: Custom

in Advanced preferences:

Seperator: ,
Sender position: 3
Date position: 6
Body position: 8

Otherwise it always failed with "unexpected error" message.

An accepted solution is described with the question How to move contacts and other data from Symbian to Android? -- which might be of special interest to you, as it covers the transfer of other data as well. The SMS Migrator tool described there does, according to its description...

4 steps to migrate / import / transfer / move SMS from Iphone,
  Window Mobile, Symbian (Nokia), BlackBerry, Sony Errison,
  Samsung, Siemens, and so on to your Android.

A step-by-step guide can be found on the product's website.

Probably SMS Migrator will do the job. But it is not free and according to reviews it failed for some people. I don't want to pay for something that will probably fail.

I understand. As that tool either requires you to first export SMS on your own, you might want to take a look at Migrating SMSes from Windows Mobile to Android phone -- not the tool itself, but the procedure might help. If you can figure out the XML format used, and convert your exported SMS into it, you will be fine.


text:
Is it possible to have multiple instances of the same app (logged in to different accounts)?
Is it possible to have multiple instances of the same app (logged in to different accounts)?
Example: I want Instagram A logged in to Account A (personal), and Instagram B logged in to Account B (business). Both apps are on the same phone; I don't want to log-in and log-out just use use a different accounts.

When you mean 'Instagram A' and 'Instagram B' do you mean two instances? If that is the case, Android doesn't permit to have more than one instances of same application.  IMHO, unless the app itself has some workarounds (like how Chrome browser has tabs to compensate) this is not possible.

That's something that the individual app needs to implement. Apps like GMail do have this functionality, many other app authors don't put the extra work in for features like this that not many people will use.

Was wondering if there was a workaround to that, like: decompile and change its ID or something to make each app unique. [though I suppose that is not legal]

@geff_chang: changing an app's package name should be possible, though since the package name of an app is hard coded in many different places throughout an apk, and since it is used as part of the identifier for sending Intents, it would be really difficult, if not impossible, to do it correctly for arbitrary programs (because you need to solve the Halting Problem). I think that's how Brut's map (an unofficial modification of Google Map) can be installed side-by-side with normal Google Map.

What Android version are you referring to?

Yes, please clarify exactly what you mean by "different accounts". Do you mean different Facebook accounts but a single Android user account? In that case your question might be covered by a similar one: How to keep two versions of an app installed? Do you mean two Android user accounts on a 4.2 tablet?

TiBackup offers some limited support for app profiles: http://apcmag.com/android-how-to-store-multiple-profiles-for-any-app.htm

Looks like a classic XY Problem. I'm guessing you want to easily switch among multiple Facebook accounts and you've decided that the solution is to have multiple installs of the same application. 'Twould be better if you would ask about the actual problem you're trying to solve.

Related http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/119500

Titanium Backup PRO (and only the paid (Pro) version allows this) - FYI ROOT REQUIRED - does allow Profiles, but not the running of multiple insntances of the same app, with the exception of Winamp (but Winamp has Always been written to do that, no matter the platform)

There's an awkward  solution:
Renaming the package name inside an apk as proposed by Adobe to fix a nasty limitation of their AIR framework, XDA has proposed the same too.
All use apktool to reverse engineer an app (unpack apk, change package name in AndroidManifest.xml, repack, resign).
Note:
This won't change locations on the SD card though (if it's used, all 5 instances would use the very same folder on the card still, just FYI)

Just decompile the app, change package name, compile, push to phone. Done! Just dont distribute it, advertising it as yours, because that is illegal.

No, it's not possible to run multiple instances of the same app.

No, This is definitely impossible. Android OS never allows you to install multiple same apps.

What about JB 4.2 and multi-user accounts?

even with 4.2, technically, you don't ever install the app more than once. it uses the same app that had been installed previously, just creates a data folder for the user that "installed" the app.

You can't have two applications which has same identifier. The identifier is the string after this text in url of the app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=. So for a single app this would be same, even if you haven't downloaded it from playstore, the identifier would be unique for the app.
For facebook app, the identifier is com.facebook.katana.

PS: The identifier is also called Package name of the app.

Maybe we decompile app and changeing identidier to com.facebooka.katana and recompile then install. Mybe installed ?

Still won't work. The facebook app uses facebook graph API, where you need to put in the package name and main activity class name in dashboard, along with developer id. You've to change the facebook app ID and secret key too. The trick might work on other apps.


text:
Using Google Voice with Android phone and a SIP appliance (Obi)
I just purchased a Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ with Jellybean(4.1), and have an Unlimited account with Straight Talk. I would like to use Google Voice to handle voicemail for the phone.
Currently, I am using my Google Voice account as a SIP provider for my Obi100 internet phone appliance, but I am using the phone's aswering machine rather than GV to handle missed calls, and I have the Google Voice account set up to act as the phone's voicemail (activated through AT&T, which is Straight Talk's SIM provider.)
The problem is, missed calls to the android phone number, not the GV number, triggers the answering machine at home - calls ring to both the Nexus and the Obi100 device! I have "Go straight to voicemail" checked off under advanced options for missed calls, rather than "ring my other phones first."
Do I need to port the mobile phone number (which I've had for ~10 years) to GV, request a new number from Straight Talk, and use the new Straight Talk number as the "physical phone" for both accounts? Am I missing something in the phone or the GV configuration to make this work as-is?

I figured it out, but it was ugly getting there. I posted a write-up below to help others avoid the same headache.

If you are using your Google Voice for another purpose, such as a SIP service for an ObiHai appliance or as a VOIP system on your PC, you will encounter problems with Voicemail not picking up. You will need to disable Google Voicemail on your phone, create a new Google Voice account, with a new number, and add your Android phone to that account. Then select "use Google voicemail" and follow the instructions for your provider.
(If you use Straight Talk, select either T-Mobile or AT&T as your provider, depending on the SIM you purchased from Straight Talk.)
The number on the new Google Voice account does not need to be used for anything other than voicemail - calls to your cell phone will be forwarded to the GV number after 4 rings, and since there is no VOIP device listening at that number on the new account, voicemail will pick up.
You will need to log into the new account in the Google Voice app, and go through the setup wizard again.


text:
Installing original OS on Samsung s3
Is it possible to install Google's original OS without all the manufacturer-added bloatware that comes with the device?
Is there a chance that I would ruin the phone and/or not be able to get it to work as it used to if I don't like it for some reason?
Are there any important features that I would miss out if I had to do so?

You can have some custom ROMs, but if you want just to remove the bloatware, I would just root my device, uninstall those bloatwares and if possible unroot again.
Some rooting methods does permit to unroot and some do not.  Even in latter case all that has happened is just you had rooted your device and still have your original ROM.

I also like the look that comes with the nexus, but that's secondary really.
How would I root it? And I assume rooting will void warranty?

I just made a Google search and found http://www.androidauthority.com/galaxy-s3-gt-i9300-root-clockworkmod-recovery-95849 explaining it step by step. Some manufacturers does not provide warranty on rooted device. But rooting is not illegal and some manufacturers permit, though they are literally countable.  After rooting, you will be able to install any ROM and that includes the original ROM that was unrooted. So, in case of problems (of certain kind) you can restore the original ROM.

This page says http://blog.everyonehere.info/how-to-unroot-samsung-galaxy-s3 how to unroot your S3.

Thanks for the detailed help.
One question, if I had to unroot it and restore the original ROM, there'd probably some trace of my tampering with the device anyway would there? That will probably be enough for Samsung to void the warranty.

No absolutely not. However, Samsung has different versions of ROM for different regions. You can see your ROM in Settings->About phone. If you can get the same ROM type instead of that said in unroot procedure, there will be no difference at all.

@Narayanan Wont there be a counter which will be incremented when we flash our phone with some other ROM ?

I haven't heard of such counters. As a far as my device LG P500 is concerned, I had flashed more than 5 different ROMS, each several times, the total should at least should have exceeded 20 times - to best of my knowledge.  Just learnt now that Samsung seems to have such counters. And there are minds to provide solution for that as well :) http://www.shetalksandroid.com/2012/03/how-to-reset-sgs2-flash-counter-and.html


text:
Can I configure Google Play to see App Reviews in several languages?
By default Google Play is configured to display reviews only in my native language (not english). But there are a lot of reviews in other languages, especially in english and I want to see them also. As a workaround I can change language to english but it is not perfect solution. Can I see reviews both in my native language and in english?

Not with the regular Playstore app, AFAIK. If you want to do so using an app, you might want to take a look at Market Comments Reader. From within the web browser, AndroidPIT allows to show comments of all languages at once, i.e. without selecting each language separately.
Update: note that both, the app and the AndroidPIT site section, are dead by now. For a work-around you could use my UserScript GooglePlaySwitchLang in a web browser (like Firefox) via an Addon like Greasemonkey (see the Greasyfor main page for a list of options for your favorite browser). The script injects links to easily toggle between languages – currently German and English, but you easily can adjust it to any language combination you need.

If You browse Play store via a web browser, then you can add &hl=en at the end of the URL and it may show English comments.

Not working for this page: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.kingsoft.officekey&hl=en or this page: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.magazin.weekly&hl=en

Did work for me. @Firelord maybe these apps didn't have english reviews?

Perfectly simple & working!

Worked for me with &hl=hu also (for Hungarian)

This should be the main answer and the script option should be the secondary answer for advanced and motivated users.


text:
Does unlocking a phone from a Network allow manufacturer updates?
I am having a major problem with Three network not pushing the latest 1.29 update for my HTC One X phone.
If i get them to unlock it will that enable me to download the update that HTC have released and is available on unbranded handsets?
How does unlocking affect where a handset 'looks' when the I search latest updates?
Thanks

Unlocking a phone from network has nothing to do with manufacturer updates. Its more of, being able to take a SIM card from another network and pop it in.
For example, buy a handset from Orange, and using a T-Mobile SIM card in the new Orange handset, the T-Mobile will not work as the handset is locked into the Orange network and thusly refuse any other SIM card except Orange's own. By unlocking the Orange handset, you can effectively pop in the T-Mobile SIM card in place and continue using the handset as if it was "bought from T-Mobile" instead.
A unlock code would be required (There are plenty of websites that can do this for you for a fee), some operators will charge you for the unlock code - again this is dependent on whether you're on contract or pay-as-you-go - check the terms and conditions of that first. For example, from my dealings on modaco's forum, Orange will not give you the unlock code until after a time period of usage on contract, think it was 3 months, again check!
Once a unlock code is handed over to you, this is taken from the handset's IMEI number and the designated SIM card that you wish to use, which a 6 or 8 digit number is generated, that, going by the previous example, a T-Mobile SIM card gets popped in, the Orange's handset will prompt for the network unlock code, in which the 6 or 8 digit number is entered to unlock it thus freeing the handset from the network.
One thing though, this happens with Samsung, flashing unofficially using the likes of Odin or Multiloader, it could mess up the handset, because there's a checking in place to ensure that if the handset is locked, the flashing will fail. KIES is one! Now, this was going back about 18 months ago, so I do not know if that applies now.
If you are thinking of flashing a custom ROM, double check to ensure that the handset can indeed be flashed with the network lock in place.


text:
Where are cached email messages stored in the Gmail app?
Google recently disabled one of my Gmail accounts (and will apparently take several days to re-enable it), but luckily I have some emails I need right now saved in the Gmail app.
Is there any way I can download them to my computer? In what folder are they stored on Ice Cream Sandwich?

Gmail usually stores its data on internal storage:
/data/data/com.google.android.gm/
├── cache
│   ├── download
│   └── webviewcache
├── databases
├── files
├── lib
└── shared_prefs

From this directory structure you may guess some things. I'm not sure what exactly is stored in the cache subdirectory except for downloads (the extracted Nandroid backup I've got on my workstation comes from a device where Gmail actually wasn't used). Your messages (in fact, your entire mail contents) are however stored in a SQLite3 database: databases/mailstore.<address> -- where <address> is your mail address.
So if you can pull this directory to your computer (which might require root privileges), you could use a graphical SQLite frontend to explore this database. The messages table will be your primary target.


text:
How To Fix Broken Contacts Storage (Droid 3 v2.3.4)?
Symptoms

I receive a force close from com.motorola.contacts when I try to edit my contacts
I can view my contacts
The issue started immediately after I tried removing the thousand pound bundle of bloatware that Verizon pushed to my phone.

Avenues of Approach

Repairing the Stock Contact Storage
What apps does com.motorola.contacts depend on?
(Bonus question:  How would I find that on my own; other than trial-in-error)
I have read that this app relies on some of the blur.yahoo bloatware.  I tried keeping those enabled, but I may have missed a vital one and if I did, it is no longer on my phone so I'll have to hunt for it.  Ideally, I won't have to re-enable this junk, which brings me to
Replace Contact Storage With Third-Party App
I have been searching for contact app replacements and so far they seem to run on top of the stock contacts app (as in they will also allow me to view, but app.motorola.contacts crashes when I try to edit).  Example apps: Contapps, Go Contacts, as well as a few others.
Is it even possible to replace this system app?
Use Alternate Version of the Stock Contact App
  I don't mean to ask you guys to do my experimenting for me, but could I take the contact storage app from a different system that doesn't require Junk.Yahoo:  Such as an older version of Android or one that doesn't come from Verizon?

I wouldn't recommend Go Contacts. Based on my experience [Samsung Galaxy S2], it doesn't work well with Google Sync. But maybe other users don't have this issue. I still use the stock Contacts app.

Fair enough, but as I stated:  Those won't run anyway, they seem to run on top of the stock contact app - So when they try to edit the contact, com.motorola.contacts crashes.

Wow, that response is long overdue. Anyway, GO Contacts seems to be OK now. I haven't had any issues with Google Sync anymore. I recommend it now. :)

Haha, yeah I know.  I got a 2500 view badge that led me back here and I realized I never responded.

I just solved the contacts force close issue on my droid 3. I had frozen several apps with Titanium Backup. The fix was to unfreeze these 2 items:
  Yahoo contacts 2.3.4
and
  Yahoo! mail authenticator 2.3.4
Immediately my issues were resolved.
Running rooted stock rom
Hope this helps others. I have benefited plenty from others' posts. :)


text:
Is it possible to change the text bubbles on the s3?
I just am trying to figure out how to change the backgrounds behind text messages. Is there a setting or some app which lets you do this?

Go to the Messaging app and hit the settings button. You will see Bubble style and Background style.
When you select Bubble Style you will see options at the bottom of the screen that you can scroll through (the top option is the look for your outgoing messages, the bottom option is the look for received messages).
When you select Background style there are a few options to scroll through at the bottom of the screen as well.

You could install a 3rd-party app like GO SMS Pro to replace the stock Messaging app. This would allow you to customize the font size, colors, backgrounds, theme, and others.

Go to your messaging app on your front screen or where ever you have it placed and then once you are on it go to the bottom left corner on your phone and tap it and then hit settings and scroll down and it says bubble style or background style and there you go you changed it and you can also change your messaging background


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How do I view apk information in Mac OS X?
On windows, I have Android Commander installed so whenever I double click on an APK file, the information about it (ie: package name, version, etc) is displayed. I'm looking for something similar for a Mac OS X. What are my options?

The best and quickest way to use it is to obtain the tool from the Android SDK, called aapt and invoke it from the command line like this:
aapt d --values badging some_apk_name.apk
An example of the output is shown:
package: name='foo.bar' versionCode='1' versionName='1.00'
sdkVersion:'7'
targetSdkVersion:'16'
application: label='FooBar' icon='res/drawable/ic_launcher_icon.png'
launchable activity name='foo.bar.activity'label='FooBar' icon=''
uses-permission:'android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE'
uses-feature:'android.hardware.touchscreen'
main
other-activities
other-receivers
other-services
supports-screens: 'small' 'normal' 'large' 'xlarge'
supports-any-density: 'true'
locales: '--_--'
densities: '120' '160' '240' '320'

This will extract certain but limited values and parse the encoded AndroidManifest.xml (which is binary encoded upon compilation from Java source to APK binary).

You can alias aapt="$(\ls -d $HOME/Library/Android/sdk/build-tools/* | tail -n 1)/aapt" within your .zshrc to always have the latest aapt available in your terminal.

You can use QuickLookAPK, a APK Quicklook plugin. It's actually a wrapper of the aapt tool t0mm13b mentioned here.
Instructions:

Download QuickLookAPK.qlgenerator zip file, unzip and put it in: ~/Library/QuickLook.
Run qlmanage -r ; qlmanage -m
Now press space key for selected APK file in Finder and view the AndroidManifest file info.

This works but APKs compiled with newer SDKs won't show their version and package name, because the version of aapt included with QuickLookAPK is too old. To fix this you just have to copy a newer version of aapt in the following directory: "~/Library/QuickLook/QuickLookAPK.qlgenerator/Contents/Resources" (aapt is included with the Android SDK and you can also get it by downloading the latest Adobe AIR SDK)

QuickLookAPK doesn't work on Mojave anymore. Any alternatives for quick look functionality?

@Slav Have you checked OMA's comment back when you posted your comment 5 years ago? The solution is to run cp "$(\ls -d $HOME/Library/Android/sdk/build-tools/* | tail -n 1)/aapt" "$HOME/Library/QuickLook/QuickLookAPK.qlgenerator/Contents/Resources/" to update aapt.

You might want to take a look at e.g. apktool, which is written in Java and will run on a Mac -- the linked page even contains the installation instructions.
You might also want to take a look at APKInspector (written in Python, it seems). Not having a Mac, I cannot say for sure whether it will run on it.
Mentioned for completeness: APK Multi Tool. Will probably not run on a Mac, as the page only advertizes a Windows and a Linux version -- but maybe the latter can be made working with minor effort, so you might want to contact its developer.

As others have mentioned, apk is just a renamed zip file. For a quick look at its content, on the mac terminal, you can type
zipinfo apk-file.apk

you can also use the command unzip to extract its content.

You might want to try apktool. This will run on your Mac.
And as @Izzy mentioned, you can try APK Multi Tool to get the APK properties.
One last thing you could try is viewing the contents of the APK. This can be done by renaming your apk file to .zip and extracting its contents. You will then see a file called AndroidManifest.xml, this will show app version, package name, etc.

-1 from me, in the last paragraph of your answer - by renaming the apk to zip, and unzipping, the manifest is in binary encoded format.

No its not. I can read the manifest.XML fine. Its probably just your machine.

It may be viewable using apktool and other similar tool s etc... I stand by that comment!

I think its just your machine!

No! Using Linux here, using tools such apktool etc, do go through the trouble in parsing and analyzing the AndroidManifest.xml - it might help you to learn that the xml you see using those tools are not exactly what was on the developer's build environment originally - FYI - see this Its well known its encoded in a proprietary binary format which when using aapt or similar can decode it. End of conversation!

t0mm13b is fully right. The AndroidManifest.xml file is encoded.


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How to Screenshot Of the Screen on Samsung Galaxy S 2?
Since i have updated my phone by Android version 4.0.3 i am not able to take a screen shot of my phone, before i used to do it by pressing Home and Power button simultaneously.
Now if i am pressing Home and Power button simultaneously it open up Task Manager.
Can someone explain me how to fix this issue.
Thanks in advance.
Regards
Sam

On my Galaxy S3 it is Home and Power but they need to be held in for about 1 second but it may be different on the S2
EDIT: According to this Samsung have changed the Screen shot buttons to be Volume down + power on some firmware versions and on others it is Power + home heald for about 2 seconds. Hope that helps

[Samsung Galaxy S2][Android 4.0.3] It's Down + Power for me.

On my Samsung Galaxy SIII (GT-i9300) updated OTA to Android 4.3 screenshots are taken by simultaneously holding Power+Home and the screenshot is saved under /storage/emlated/0/Pictures/Screenshots.

Best way to take screenshot on Samsung S2 is press & hold the power & home button together. There is more ways to capture screenshot. You can find these ways by clicking here..

i was on the same situation like yours.. my S2 updated about one month ago.. do press your home button together with lock or power button and hold it for about 2 seconds.. press it together not separately and hold.. best of luck.. ;)


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My Samsung Galaxy tab 2 (7.0) can't see 5ghz networks
My Samsung Galaxy tab 2 (7.0) can't see 5ghz networks.
Am I missing anything?

Is your wifi's channel set to one the Galaxy Tab cannot operate with (due to legal restrictions you cannot use some channels in some countries, depends on your device' settings, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi#Limitations ).

The spec sheet lists compatibility as "Wireless Internet WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, WiFi Direct".    If it has a 5 Ghz radio, it should list a/b/g/n.
Despite this, there are plenty of discussions around the net about getting the Galaxy Tab to work on a 5 Ghz AP, so your problem may be something else.

Entirely incorrect..  The earliest WiFi 802.11 (now called '802.11a') is generally universal, and often ignored when stating capabilities.  However, both WiFi 802.11a and 802.11n can support 2.4GHz and 5GHz, but this is not available unless both the AP (access point) and client (your device) both support 5GHz.  The other advantage for the 5GHz spectrum is that it is not overcrowded and is (generally) unaffected by cordless phones and microwave ovens.

A support is not 'generally universal'.  A does not predate B, both having been released in Sept 1999.  A does not operate in 2.4Ghz.  The term Wi-Fi is a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance, formed in 1999 to promote 802.11b.  It did not apply to 802.11a until 2002.  5 Ghz support didn't start to become popular until the days of the 'pre-N' routers, which offered an early implementation of MIMO and sometimes dual band.  A device marked B or G operates on 2.4Ghz.  A device marked A operates on 5.0Ghz.  A device marked N is ambiguous.  It's odd for a dual band device not to support A and say so.

Possible answer (untest)
Galaxy Tab 2 - 5GHz WiFi Support?

Q. Can anyone please confirm? seems strange a new device does NOT support 5GHz?
A. If it's the same as the Tab ver 1 it only works if the router is on a low channel in the 5400 MHz range... Use 36... the high channels
  at 5700 MHz don't work.

[ More authorative later, I only bought my Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) yesterday. ]

UPDATE
Tested with router 5MHz set to channel 36.
Still unable to connect.

Link without summary is not considered helpful as when the link dies the answer might be useless.


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Chinese-bought Samsung Galaxy S2 has a very limited language list

Possible Duplicate:
Can I install additional languages on Android?

I bought a Samsung Galaxy S2 in China and have used it in English but now I bought the new S3 and want to sell my S2.  Since I live in Norway I need to be able to change the language to Norwegian, but it only has some Asian languages (four of them) and English UK, English US.  Is it possible to add the languages that are missing?

It has Android 4.0.3 FYI

You would have to change to another (Android) ROM that has other languages. Take a look at How to Install Stock ROM on Samsung Galaxy S3 (S III GT-I9300).
You can download Nordic firmware at SamFirmware. (Nordic firmware's not in the related links in the link above, but you can follow the first link for the steps in installing/flashing a new ROM)

is there a chance to brick the phone by doing this? im a bit scared to toy around with the firmware :)

@LuciaLobos There is always a risk, but you should be fine if you follow the steps correctly. Also, please read their guidelines (which data to back-up). Personally, I have softbricked my phone a couple of times, by flashing the incorrect ROM. But for as long as you can still boot into recovery or download mode, you can always repeat the flashing process all over again. I recommend you read the whole article first, before doing the procedures. This way, you would be aware of what procedures to do / expect.