text:
How do I know when an app was used in Android?
Is there any way to tell when an app was being used in an Android phone?
I am specifically interested in the camera and gallery functions. I believe my roommate went through my photos without asking, and I've tried to view the cache for the Gallery app but can't seem to figure out how to do it.
Is this even on the right track? He had it for a twenty minute interval, and I want to see if the Gallery was accessed during that period of time.

Android allows usage stats to be seen from GUI. Here's how you can see it. (Source, by Kevin Swartz)

In your default dialer, type *#*#4636#*#*. It would open a window named Testing which is a sub-setting of Settings app.
Go to Usage Statistics.

For Lollipop:

Sort the time in Sort by: based on Usage time or  Last time used or  App name.
The order of entries are App, Last time used, and Usage time.
(Click image to enlarge)

For Jelly Bean 4.2.1 to Kitkat 4.4.2:

Sort the time in Sort by: based on Usage time or  Launch count or App name.
The order of entries are App, Count, and Usage time.

(Click image to enlarge)

The usage time in these Android versions is shown in milliseconds (ms). You may do calculation on your own, or try a conversion tool like this to instantly convert them into minutes.

Don't forget ADB
Alternatively, you can directly jump into the Usage Statistics window using adb. Enter this command:
For Android Lollipop:
   adb shell am start -n com.android.settings/.UsageStatsActivity

For Android 4.2.1 to 4.4.2:
   adb shell am start -n com.android.settings/.UsageStats

See this answer if you're interested in knowing the role of parameters in those commands.
You can also do adb shell dumpsys usagestats (Source, by Jinghao Shi) which for Android 4.2.1 and 4.4.2 didn't give anything more useful than already covered in  screenshots posted above for them.
Lollipop shows more end-user comprehensible output in comparison to its predecessors,
In-memory daily stats
  timeRange="8/29/2015, 8:34 AM â 8/30/2015, 1:41 AM"
    packages
      package=com.android.documentsui totalTime="00:07" lastTime="8/30/2015, 1:35 AM"
      package=com.android.browser totalTime="00:02" lastTime="8/30/2015, 1:35 AM"
      package=com.android.camera2 totalTime="00:05" lastTime="8/30/2015, 1:37 AM"
...
...
events
      time="8/30/2015, 1:34 AM" type=MOVE_TO_BACKGROUND package=com.android.deskclock class=com.android.deskclock.DeskClock
      time="8/30/2015, 1:34 AM" type=MOVE_TO_FOREGROUND package=com.android.dialer class=com.android.incallui.InCallActivity
      time="8/30/2015, 1:34 AM" type=MOVE_TO_FOREGROUND package=com.android.dialer class=com.android.dialer.DialtactsActivity
...
...
In-memory weekly stats
  timeRange="8/27/2015, 5:30 AM â 8/30/2015, 1:41 AM"
    packages
      package=com.android.documentsui totalTime="00:07" lastTime="8/30/2015, 1:35 AM"
      package=com.android.browser totalTime="00:02" lastTime="8/30/2015, 1:35 AM"
      package=com.android.camera2 totalTime="00:05" lastTime="8/30/2015, 1:37 AM"
...
...
In-memory monthly stats
  timeRange="8/9/2015, 8:34 AM â 8/30/2015, 1:41 AM"
    packages
      package=com.android.documentsui totalTime="00:07" lastTime="8/30/2015, 1:35 AM"
      package=com.android.browser totalTime="00:02" lastTime="8/30/2015, 1:35 AM"
      package=com.android.camera2 totalTime="00:05" lastTime="8/30/2015, 1:37 AM"
...
...
In-memory yearly stats
  timeRange="12/21/2014, 5:30 AM â 8/30/2015, 1:41 AM"
    packages
      package=com.android.documentsui totalTime="00:07" lastTime="8/30/2015, 1:35 AM"
      package=com.android.browser totalTime="00:02" lastTime="8/30/2015, 1:35 AM"
      package=com.android.camera2 totalTime="00:05" lastTime="8/30/2015, 1:37 AM"
Now you can browse the list to find Camera and Gallery app, and see their "last time used" value, for Lollipop, that is. Unfortunately, the info in this section wouldn't help the devices running predecessor of Lollipop, unless the device is rooted, or you find an app that can give you package statistics.
Also, in your particular case, all of this info would be helpful only if you've had not launched the Camera, Gallery, or a particular app of your interest after your friend was done using the phone, since the time-stamp for that app gets updated to the new "Last time used", for all Android versions I mentioned.

The following section would work if the device is rooted.

For Jelly Bean (4.2.1) to Kitkat (4.4.2)
Android keeps a log of when  an app (it's component) was last used. You can head down to /data/system/usagestats/ using a file explorer with root access, or using adb.
There would be a file named usage-history.xml and some other files with naming convention as usage-YYMMDD where:

YYYY - Year
MM - Month
DD - Date

E.g. usage-20150729 is the file created on July 29, 2015.
That .xml is a plain XML file, so you should be able to view it in a  text editor. Those usage-YYMMDD are data files (charset=binary) and my text editor Kate couldn't open them in human-readable form. However, cat <FILE> command does the job, so as the Android app QuickEdit, not completely I should add.
The basic template of entries in that .xml file is:
<pkg name="">
  <comp name="" />
  <comp name="" />
  ...
  <comp name="" />
</pkg>

E.g. These are the following entries for the AFWall+ app:
<pkg name="dev.ukanth.ufirewall">
  <comp name="dev.ukanth.ufirewall.MainActivity" lrt="1438134244890" />
  <comp name="dev.ukanth.ufirewall.widget.ToggleWidgetOldActivity" lrt="1435337932669" />
  <comp name="dev.ukanth.ufirewall.HelpActivity" lrt="1416601650972" />
  ...
</pkg>

The lrt against every component (comp) is the Unix time. To make it human readable, use Epoch Converter or anything that can convert Unix time into human readable time.
E.g. 1438134244890 is the Unix time when I accessed the AFWall+'s main activity (it's default view) and the converted time is Wed, 29 Jul 2015 01:44:04 GMT, which is correct.
As for the content in usage-YYMMDD, you'll see activities of the apps you visited on that day. There is no time-stamp there.
For Lollipop
Lollipop has considerable changes in regard to usage statistics collection of an app. See official note by  Google here.
The concept of  usage-history.xml and usage-YYMMDD doesn't apply here. Instead, you get directories named daily, monthly, weekly, yearly. All of them has files which you guessed it right, having numeral names, nothing but Unix Time like 1440374400000.
A typical file under daily has the content:
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8' standalone='yes' ?>
<usagestats version="1" endTime="66355190">
    <packages>
        <package lastTimeActive="66153798" package="com.android.providers.media" timeActive="2974" lastEvent="2" />
        <package lastTimeActive="66329769" package="net.dinglisch.android.taskerm" timeActive="64172" lastEvent="2" />
        <package lastTimeActive="66150806" package="android" timeActive="1942" lastEvent="2" />
...
...
    <event-log>
        <event time="43080692" package="android" type="5" fs="1065353216" mcc="404" mnc="97" />
        <event time="43087204" package="com.android.launcher3" class="com.android.launcher3.Launcher" type="2" />
        <event time="43087329" package="com.android.settings" class="com.android.settings.Settings" type="1" />

Now this is actually the same thing that we saw in usagestat's  output but the timing is in its raw form. I've no idea how to understand the time here let alone convert it into human-readable form. Developers should be able to do it.
If you what it is and how to convert (as an end-user) then please let me know it or post an answer here.

Have you tried opening the config file with Notepad++. I have no root so I can't check myself.

@Lucky Didn't try Windows; using Slackware Linux here. You may try opening it in your system. Here is the file. It doesn't seem to hold any configuration, so I possibly wouldn't call it a config file. :)

Could open in Notepadd++ and Sublime Text editors. Sublime opens it as as HEX data.

Could you please share a screenshot for Notepad ++?

Here's how it look in Notepad++ and Sublime Text

Plain ASCII XML here for my tabbi running 4.1.2. @Firelord: As I have no 5.x device, could you please at least include the file names used there? Thanks a lot! // For those who are curious: this is what they look like there.

@Firelord what a coincident: I've just re-checked your post right know before seeing the notification :) I would upvote it again if I could, very thorough and detailed. Now we just need the missing "timing" detail for Lollipop … Thanks for your hard work!

As per user Mel: UPDATE: The time (event time="43087329") is the delta/time elapsed in milliseconds since the time the log was created. So 1440374400000+43087329, and then convert into something readable using a Unix convertor.

adb all the way.

If your phone is last used or if you want to find out apps which runs/connected on internet like(Browsers, Clash of Clans etc) the last used activity is recorded under the my activity in your google account. You can find that out by visiting https://myactivity.google.com and click on Android.


text:
Can I get the delta Cyanogenmod files?
I have a Cyanogenmod nightly build installed, and I want to update it.
Unfortunately, I don't have WiFi but only an ethernet connection, so I'll have to install it from a computer.
Is there a way to download the delta file which I get from the phone?

If you want there is a way called "Reverse Tethering", where you can use your PC's internet on phone trough cable.

@FiN aye. It is actually part of the android system (settings > wireless and networks > more > USB Tethering)

No Reverse Tethering is not. USB Tethering is where you get internet from the phone. But Reverse Tethering is where you get internet from PC to your phone.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Difference between WhatsApp audio and WhatsApp voice notes

What is the difference between WhatsApp audio and WhatsApp voice notes?
If I record a voice conversation, where is it going to be stored? Is it in WhatsApp audio folder or in WhatsApp voice notes?
In which folder  all of my received voice notes get saved?

The folder WhatsApp/Media/WhatsApp Audio/ contains the downloaded audio files that you received as an attachement from a contact. The file names usually start with AUD-.
The folder WhatsApp/Media/WhatsApp Voice Notes/ contains the voice files that you recorded using your Whatsapp. They usually start with filenames containing PTT- and stored under corresponding folders with date of the recording.

With reference to Whatsapp Document
Choose Audio to record a message or send an existing audio from your phone.
But
WhatsApp voice notes - To send a voice message.
Folder WhatsApp/Media/WhatsApp Voice Notes/
Folder WhatsApp/Media/WhatsApp Audio/

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


text:
Contacts lost in Samsung S3
I had my Gmail account linked to Samsung S3, all my contacts were added to this account.  I removed this account and re-added it, and found that all my contacts were lost.
When I checked the Settings it seems the Sync service is not working, and when I checked my contacts' page on Gmail I found only the very old contacts. It means that the Sync service wasn't working since a long time ago.
Is there any possibility to retrieve my contacts from Samsung S3 itself?

Sorry to say this, but there isn't any way to do so as far as I know.
What you can do now, is to simply add your Gmail account to sync at-least your old contacts.
If your sync is not working properly, then do the following:

Check that Internet connection is working properly on your phone, by resetting your mobile internet connection.
If above solution isn't working then try restarting your phone after removing your SIM card for at-least 10 minutes.
If the problem still persists then please contact your service centre for further help.

I have experienced a similar problem.  have you ever linked another Google account (ie Google Voice, G+,...) or anything like Facebook or Hotmail to your Google account?  If so try accessing your contacts via that account. when Google was experiencing sync problems in the past I found ALL of my contacts, new, ancient and forgotten had been automatically synced to my old (and expired) att.net account.  I discovered this when I pulled an old laptop out in order to donate it -luckily on the same day that all my contacts and calender INFO were lost forever!
I was checking the "workings" of the laptop and getting ready to wipe the HD when I accidentally opened the e mail program and saw that the contacts showed to be updated!  first time I beat Murphy's Law.  I contacted Google's Email HELP forum and was told that a "partial sync" had happened and that was the only account that Sync had completed..
Anyway - It would be worth a try, good luck and Back up!


text:
Find hidden folders/files/partition
I connect my samsung galaxy ace 2 into my Windows pc, and there are 2 directories shown. My SD card, and the internal storage, named Phone. Both of these seem to be empty. the SD card directory, named Card Says that there is 3.57 GB Free of 3.68 GB, yet opening it shows Nothing. Phone says there is 1GB of 1GB free, and there's nothing inside. I have come to realise that what i have emptied out is just data the apps collect and use, not the apps themselves. All aps remain on my phone and work fine. Yet it says it is completely empty.
Now, what my phone says is a completely different story. It thinks the total space is 1.2 GB and there is 1.1 GB free, with 71.16 MB being used for applications and the rest for Misc files. There are only slight differences in the SD card, with 3.69 GB Total and 3.58 GB Free.
So, My Phone and PC contradict each other in pretty much all aspects. I have windows setup to show hidden files. But it isn't. I want to see all the files on my phone, from my computer. How can I acheive this? Searching for this issue on google doesn't help much from what I have found.
EDIT: The samsung website specifies the phone as having "Built in memory 4GB (2GB user memory)". So why is it I only get half of what i'm supposed to have?

if your phone shows up as a local drive (like a pendrive)
go to start type cmd then Ctrl+Shift+Enter(to open with admin privileges) then type
attrib -s -h /d /s [X]:\*.*
where [X] is the drive letter of the memory of the phone you want to see (dont type the "[]")

It shows up as "Phone", with an icon mildly representing one.


text:
Does Google Nexus 5 has arm or armX86 or armX64 processor?
I am trying to install Xposed module on my rooted Nexus 5 running stock  Android 5.1.1. In that process I am trying to download the files from [this XDA page. I am unable to find whether my Nexus 5 is an arm or armX86 or armX64.
Sure, I can try one after the other as I have a nandroid backup, and I can also Google it and find it in pages like this.  But, how can I be sure of myself? I can rely on any app that might say so after installing in my phone or some reputed sites say it so. What would be the best and authentic way for me to find the same?

The Nexus 5 runs a Snapdragon 800, which is not a 64-bit supported processor. That means you should be going for the arm version of Xposed, and not the arm64 version.
NOTE: You are getting confused with the meaning of x86. In this context, x86 refers to mobile processors made by Intel (the Nexus 5 has an "arm" chip). The difference between "arm" and "arm64" is whether it supports 64-bit execution. There is no such thing as "arm86".
Currently, there are only unofficial builds of Xposed for 5.1 and higher.


text:
Is there a way I can see or edit clipboard entries in Samsung Galaxy Tab S?
I'm using a Samsung Galaxy Tab S running Lollipop stock update (8.6 Wi-fi only).
I need to be able to visually reference what is being stored for the clipboard for a variety of reasons.
My Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus had an "advanced clipboard"  (I think that's what it was called). It gave the user the ability to edit, delete or use several separate entries with multiple formats (.txt, .jpg). I found it too be the most useful of Samsung's bloatware!
Is there anyway or anything I could do or add to gain similar functionality?
I don't like not being able to access, edit, or delete the contents of the clipboard without turning cartwheels, metaphorically of course.

See if this helps: How to have a clipboard functionality for multiple copy-pasting?

native clipboard which used to use Xposed to seamlessly integrate into the system (it was accessed by either the system's paste button or the selection menu). However it was now updated and uploaded to play store, the major update is that it no longer requires Xposed nor root, but it's still seamlessly integrated into the system. By simply double tapping a text filed the clipboard will open,so no notification or distracting floating buttons. Also the selected text from the clipboard gets automatically pasted.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dhm47.nativeclipboard
^^The app only Got published last week to the store . I think it's a breakthrough in the clipboards for Android

exactly what I needed - or maybe not I almost rooted this thing as per your previous post...yours truly but still not brave~~~~~

I rooted my phone and installed Xposed Framework. Then I installed the module, Native Clipboard.
Here is the screenshot when it's in use:
(Click image to enlarge)

Exactly what I "want" to do. I have a disease I call 'ROOT PARANOIA' , It could be fatal...Exposed Framework looks like exactly what I would like to use.  Samsung has so secretly limited the hardware this tablet uses with it's additions to t the software...  I'm going to try and devolope the courage to go thru and Root..  Do you know offhand any Q&A forum (nicer than XDA) that could answer some questions about the means and consequences of rooting this device?


text:
How do you view a long whatsapp profile message
Some people on whatsapp have a short profile message like "Hi, I am using Whatsapp". Other people have a long profile message like "An apple a day keeps the doctor away so that the bad things don't come out and play".
But it only shows part of their long message. How do I view the whole of it?

In the contacts list, tap the photo of the contact in question. This pops up a larger version of the photo, with three icons at the bottom: a message, a telephone, and an information 'i'. Tapping the 'i' takes you to a contact information screen, which includes the full status message.

As per FAQ:

The status message is a real time indicator of what you are doing, so
  that you can keep up to date with your contacts. You can view status
  messages by opening WhatsApp and going to the Favorites / Select
  contact screen. Your friend's status message will be displayed
  directly below their name.
It may take some time for your newly updated status message to display
  on your friends' phones. If your friends refresh their Favorites /
  Select contact list, they will see the status update much more
  quickly.

You've just quoted a huge chunk and not addressed what I said. I can see part of the message that others have put on their profiles, just not the whole of it


text:
Google Maps timeline feature not working - says "Can't connect to Maps, try again"
When I was trying to connect my past timeline events, I encountered an awkward situation.
It says "Can't connect to Maps, try again".
(Click image to enlarge)

Does anybody know why I'm getting this error? Is there any way to solve this issue?

You can always re-install the application, would also help if you posted the logs so we can see what's causing the issue.

I tried to re-install the app. I've been thinking, Google may restricted this feature on Google Map for some countries. I don't know why but I really want to use it.

Same here. Would there be a list of countries where this features is not available ?

So far it seems that China mainland and South Korea is banned from this feature...

Changing time zone seems to help as per https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/maps/y0dw2ymwW4E and https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/maps/aYQiMojpctw

Sometimes it gets disconnected internally.
So the app is non-functional.
You can always uninstall then reinstall the app.
That will reconnect it internally.

I see chatter in the comments about locations and time zones but that is not in the question, so my answer stands as written.

Reinstalling is not solving the issue.


text:
Caller or Receiver can't hear my voice in Moto G 2nd Gen 2014 running Lollipop
The Caller or Receiver can't hear my voice but I can hear them. It seems to be a kind of software bug because when I do some recording the mic works perfectly.
The only problem that I noticed is my voice is not getting through on the phone calls. I checked the microphone sign in the dialer mode, and it is not disabled too. I have all my contacts and important messages, and I simply don't want to do the factory reset, unless it is really required and is helpful too. I'll appreciate any help.

Have had the same issue. I managed to fix it by simply restarting phone... but if that doesn't work then I would suggest a factory reset.


text:
Weird battery issues
There's this phone I got, it belonged to my girlfriend's mom, but she just gave it to me since it stopped working and I wanted it. The problem is it won't charge. I'll plug it in and the screen will turn on, but I get a picture of an empty battery with a yellow crossed out battery sign in the bottom right.
I've played around with it a bit and, after some testing, concluded that the problem is with a faulty battery - it won't charge in other devices, but other batteries will work and charge in this one.
My question is, could this be something I'm able to fix easily, or would I have to buy a new battery? She said that it broke because someone tripped on the cable while the phone was charging and it fell on the floor. I don't really have enough interest in the device to buy a new battery, and I doubt she does either, so if I can't fix it that's it for the phone....

How much do you have to pay for a new battery (€ or $)?

@ott-- around $20 not really that much but I don't have the budget for it at the moment. Do you know if I could get a used battery anywhere?

It depends on the battery, most are not repairable - if it's anything internal in the battery then there is nothing you can do but get a new one. Batteries have a limited lifespan anyway, it's normal to replace instead of 'fix'.
It is possible the connector broke off the batteries logic board (the part where the thing you plug into the device's metal makes contact with some other metal thing connected to the battery - part that isn't covered on the battery) has been shifted/broken off of what it's connected to and can't make a clean connection. If this is the case, you can try soldering the connector back onto the logic board.
Not knowing what phone type you have I can't give you a specific video that shows how to do this, but you can do a google search on your device/battery on how to connect the connector to the logic board - from there you'll know what to look for on the battery to see it it's not connected as well.

authors: Виктор Попов


text:
How to disable the notification badge on Whatsapp on LG G3?
I have LG G3. I want to disable all notifications from whatsapp, when I mute a group the only thing left is the notification badge (red number) on the app.
Browsing for "android turn off badge notification lgg3" only gives me hits regarding Samsung TouchWiz and iPhone, and I so far haven't been able to locate anything in the menu of the app either.
How can I turn off the display of unread messages on the icon of the Whatsapp app?

If you mean in nunber which is apearing on app icon in app drawer, than you can install some other launcher.

I believe icon unread badges are managed by your laucher and not by the app itself. Try looking in your home launcher's options. For example nova launcher allows to control this setting through TeslaUnread.

Head to your settings, apps, and look for whatsapp. Tap it, and untick "show notification" and you are done.

I don't know if anyone still needs help but I was able to diable the app badge notifications by using ROM Toolbox Pro.
From the main ROM Toolbox Pro screen go to: App Manager > [Tap on app that you want to remove app badge notification] > Swipe from right to left until you are under 'Advanced' > Advanced Freeze > Under 'Receivers', tap on anything similar to 'NotificationBroadcastReceiver' > Tap 'Ok' to disable

authors: Једноруки Крстивоје

authors: Александр Ефремов


text:
How to reset samsung edge s6?
My Samsung has crashed, I can see that it's on but it does not respond to any button clicks nor shuts down
Tried this and it does not work.
How to reset Samsung edge s6?

Figured it out.
You need to press power button and then volume down button and hold them for some time.

Or hold the power button for ten seconds.

@DanB that was first thing I did - didn't work.

Oh. Well, that's bizarre, it works on mine.


text:
Back up photos from Nexus 5 do not appear on Google +
First off, I am technologically "challenged", so I usually have trouble performing the most basic tasks on phones/computers, etc.
Recently my phone battery has been dying way too fast and for no apparent reason. Yesterday, the phone had no power although it had been plugged in all night and it repeatedly turned itself off when I tried to engage it. I left it plugged in all day and tried again last night. Nothing. I panicked and found some advice online. Finally got it going again. I thought I had better back up my photos (around 1,500) to Google+ before I lose the phone forever.
I followed instructions and a small window on the phone said the pictures were being loaded. I kept the external power going. The battery did come back to about 85%. Then I left the phone and my Mac on all night. This morning, it (the phone) said there were 650 pictures remaining but I had run out of space. I then paid for the basic ($1.99/month) space and hoped that the rest would be uploaded.
So far NO pictures have appeared on Google+--I have looked everywhere. I don't know what to do now.
I am leaving the phone turned on and connected to external power since I'm afraid what will happen if I turn it off. (Right now the battery seems to be at about 10%!!)
I hope someone out there can help me before I lose all my pictures which are really important to me.
Thank you.

Google photos has now unlimited storage for images. Try synchronizing yours with their app.


text:
No Keyboard on Android Device Manager lock screen in Cubot X9 running Kitkat
I have locked myself out (forgot numeric PIN) of my Cubot X9 running Android 4.4 (probably, I am not 100% sure, but as it seems there is no vendor update on Lollipop available, and I definitively didn't update it manually).
So I logged in into Google's Android Device Manager and replaced my PIN code with the password specified in the form. It gets applied, as I see the new lock message, but there is no keyboard to input anything. It looks like this:

But no keyboard is showing. When I hit the return button or the home button I get back to a screen where I can enter a numeric pin (the original password)? But no letters are available.
If I press on "Emergency Call" and go back, I also come back to the PIN lock screen.
How can I enter my ADM password? Is there anyway to bypass the locked screen without losing data?


text:
Missing photos from Google Photos app
My son uploaded about 1000 photos, but when he got home from holiday and logged onto the app, the photos simply weren't there even though when he did the upload, he got a backup successful message.
Is there any way of contacting Google to retrieve them? Could they be sitting on the Google servers somewhere but he just can't see them on his account? He deleted the photos from his phone some days after the upload, but surely this wouldn't sync to the app and remove them from the cloud?

Try looking for them on the bin folder or here.

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


text:
Nexus 5 not detected by ADB
When trying to connect to my Nexus 5 (5.1.1) in Android Studio (1.0.1) my device is not found. I am running Windows 8.1 Pro.
In the [SDK]/platform-tools directory I ran the command:
adb devices

which returned:
List of devices attached

(Empty list)
I have tried several ways:

Uninstalling/reinstalling Nexus driver (android_winusb.inf)
Editing driver file with different hardware id's + Uninstalling/reinstalling
Update driver and choose the same driver file as earlier.
4 Different usb ports
Tried switching between MTP and PTP
Restarting after all the previous steps

I have no problems with accessing files on my Nexus through my computer. The nexus also is shown as "Nexus 5" in Device manager and not some other driver.
But I am still not able to connect to the phone with Android Studio and ADB command won't list the device.
How can I get it listed?
Related links:

Android studio doesn't list my phone under “Choose Device”
How do I get my Nexus 7 to show up in the adb devices list?

One thing I noticed not mentioned in what you have tried that will make your device invisible. Have you enabled USB debugging  on your Nexus 5. USB debugging helps operating systems communicate with each other and without it things get lost in translation. To enable USB debugging

Go into Android settings menu and scroll down to the about phone menu next go towards the bottom and hit the build number 7 times.
settings/about phone/build number
This will reveal a new menu within the main Android settings called developers options and scrolled to USB debugging and enable it.

That should get you up and running but if not then scrap the the driver you modified. Go to SDK redownload Google drivers and install them. That issue  was reported in 2013 and the drivers in SDK have been updated since.

That USB Debugging being enabled part is mentioned in the related links (in questions). If OP was reading patiently then he would have definitely seen it and then enabled it in the phone.

Actually shamefully I hadn't missed it in the other threads,  I believed that I had activated it by enabling Developer options. Changing the language to english and then checking the Developer options again solved it for me.

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


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Mute an APK file
How to patch an APK file so that its permanently mute?
For example if I want to send a game to my friend but don't want him to hear its sound?
Can I edit permissions related to Audio?

most apps/games are developed with toggle switch to turn off the Game volume, from it's settings. Don't your game/app has this feature? And AFAIK you may not be able to edit App features once app is installed.

Yes but I want to force mute it

There is no audio permission, because (nothing personal) that would be ridiculous. Apps rely on queues to play audio e.g. Play track 1 when player hits start. In theory, if you removed all the sounds from the apk (or replace them) it will mute the app.

Why can't your friend opt for turning the speakers off when playing your game? That's rather easy.

What is your device information and os and are your rooted? And which app/game you are trying to mute?

Both devices are 4.3, Mine rooted but his not

I want a universal solution


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SIM Toolkit keeps disappearing from app drawer
I purchased a phone sometime back (LG G3) that initially came with Android Kitkat. Eveyrything worked beautifully until I upgraded to Lollipop. Many things suddenly broke but my main concern is the SIM toolkit disappears a few minutes after reboot. I use the toolkit a lot and it's a pain to have to reboot the phone twice or thrice a day.
Can this be fixed or the phone is now forever broken?

Have you tried factory data reset? It seems to resolve a lot of issues after the update. Just remember to backup your data beforehand ;)

Yes. I have reset it twice. That helped with speed as it was quite slow. It did not help with other problems. Thanks for suggesting though.


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Copy Samsung 3 Contacts to my computer or flash drive?
Using windows 7, Samsung galaxy 3 phone contacts do not show on the list. How do i copy all my contacts from my phone to my computer or flash drive?

You should be able to use the Kies program provided by Samsung.  It's a small utility program that runs on Windows (and Mac).  Kies allows you to manage your phone and its data from a GUI running on Windows.  You'll need to connect your phone to the computer using the usb cable that came with it.

I connected the phone to the computer using the USB cable that came with it. The Contacts folder does not show.  The phone is SHG-T999L version of Samsung Galaxy S3.

Did you run the Kies program after connecting the cable?

@user118996 Contacts don't appear as a folder in Kies. Instead, look in the sidebar for the main application window for them.


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How do I cast my Android phone's display onto a large screen in real-time?
Is it possible to cast the screen of an Android phone onto a large display screen while playing a game on it so that every action and move of the person playing the game shows on the screen in real time?
What I want is that the gamer plays the game while looking at the phone and touching the phone screen only but a large number of people are able to see his game in real-time on the large screen.

Why not Chromecast or Miracast?

Check out NITROME TOUCHEY...http://www.nitrome.com/touchy/

Please update your question with the phone and OS version

@Lucky I am asking possibility. Is it possible in general?

Yes it is possible using chromecast or Miracast feature as george suggested. But not all phones have this feature to cast their screen onto a bigger screen. So it depends on the device capabilties.

You can do this by using an Amazing app called Shou. You can record, broadcast, and mirror your device screen.
As about mirroring, real time mirroring is available, to view on any device with a browser.


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Downgrading Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-I9300 Downgrade Confusion
My Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-I9300 is currently running Android version 4.3.0. I wanted to downgrade it back to 4.1.2 and got confused with which values to look for when selecting a rom. I know that my carrier is TEN (Telenor) Norway and that my PDA is I9300XXUGNG3. Looking up that combination I managed to verify that my carrier is indeed Telenor. Based on that, can I pick any 4.1.2 firmware that is associated with my carrier?

If the phone is unlocked, then go ahead.
It wouldn't matter which carrier that firmware belongs to. As long as it's stock, then you can flash it with no worries.


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Deleted Stock Dialer App, Not Receiving Call Notifications
So, I have the BLU STUDIO 6.0 LTE and am rooted. I deleted the Stock Phone app, replaced it with Reactiv Dialer. I can make calls just fine. But I hear the ring when someone calls but no screen pops up for me to answer. Any apps that would give me third party notifications for PHONE CALLS?

You'll have to reinstall it, I'm afraid. If another app provided such a function, this would cause conflict and even possible device crashes.


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How to sign in to my Google acount to use Play Store
I can't sign in to Play Store and download an app. It keeps saying "Authentication required. Please sign in to your Google Account".

Please avoid using leet language like 'sin' should be 'sign', 'sayin' should be 'saying', 'ur' should be 'your' and more in the question. Such words sometime infuriate people, at least it does to me. // 'sin' has an altogether different meaning.

From the home screen of your phone:

Go to Menu
Go to Settings
Go to Accounts
Go to Google
Click add account
Enter credentials and attempt to login

Let us know if this resolves your issue.


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Error: Secure Check Fail : aboot, when trying to update firmware on Samsung Galaxy Core Prime using Odin
The things I did to update firmware from Android 4.4.4 to 5.0.2:

Installed latest Samsung usb drivers for mobiles
Installed latest Samsung kies and through that I installed device drivers.
Downloaded Odin v3.10.6.
Put my phone in odin mode.
Connected my phone to my pc via original usb cable.
ODIN -> AP -> lollipop firmware (G360FXXU1BOD9_G360FOXA1BOD9_G360FXXU1BOD9_HOME.tar.md5) -> start.

After that this happened;

And my device showed this error in red color : SECURE CHECK FAIL : aboot.
Any suggestions, how can I get 5.0.2 lollipop on my core prime?
Edit : I recently put phone to format, then removed micro SD, and then did everything from step 4 but no luck. It's a new Samsung Galaxy Core Prime SM-G360F (nearly 5 days old).

Are you sure that the ROM you downloaded isn't corrupt? You can test to see if a file is corrupt by comparing its md5 signature to the one on the server. Ask the ROM uploader if they can help.

Otherwise, it may be that the boot loader is utterly incompatible with your phone. You can't just put ROMs from other Samsung phones in to ODIN and think that it will work if that is the case.

@georgeunix no that is not the case, The name of the file clearly shows that. Also I (just to ensure) extracted the .tar.md5 file using 7z in some folder and the file got extracted without any errors.

I don't know what model number the Galaxy Prime is ;)

Are you sure your boot loader is unlocked?

how can I check that? name of the phone is given in edit at the last of this question

To be honest, I don't know. I don't own a Samsung device any more.

wait while I search a li'll bit more

The issue is clearly with the connection to the phone's boot loader.

You might find that another distribution of ODIN, or even Heimdall or Mobile ODIN may work. ODIN is a leaked tool from Samsung which is buggy at best.

"Finally, the function performs signature verification of the entire image. If signature verification succeeds, the kernel is booted; otherwise, a tampering warning is displayed and the device fails to boot". Source: http://blog.azimuthsecurity.com/2013/05/exploiting-samsung-galaxy-s4-secure-boot.html

You didn't purchase your phone from a mobile network (or carrier), did you? Is there network branding on the phone or box? If so, many networks prevent you from interfering with their software. You may be able to research whether this may be a possibility.

bootloader unlocked means rooting phone? if that is so, then it is clearly mentioned that the phone should not be rooted

@georgeunix No, I don't think so, my phone is not network branded

This indicates that you are using the wrong file for your phone model.

Not sure why this got downvoted, as I am :), and I know people will say OMG don't do that, but Tmobile and International Variants can be interchanged, I've done it many times. But ODIN is stopping me.

I used to get the same message. Then I removed an option called "sécurité Verr. de réactivation" in french. Translation may be "Reactivation Lock Security".
Uncheck it and restart root procedure.

I have an imperfect solution!
If you can still get into your recovery module (TWRP in my case), then you can use a micro-sd card to flash a rom onto the device. In my case, I used CM 12 because I knew it would work, and I was freaking out, panicking that i had bricked it completely.
My experience was with a Galaxy Note 4 on T-Mobile. Hope this helps.
However, I am by no means an expert, so there is likely a better way.

I tried that too, btw I got it fixed by technician in 5 min who had original copy of the firmware. I don't know which answer to pick as right one.

If you are sure that your download file is complete, remove .md5 by renaming it. Try flashing afterwards, it wont calculate the checksum then.


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User profile Freezes in Android Lollipop
I created a new user in my MotoG Android Lollipop and, sometimes while i'm in this new user, my actual aplication freezes by undetermined seconds, and sometimes minimizes the aplication. I only can acess the header menu when it occurs (and I change the user in this case, mainly), even the app list does not work for sometime.
Also it not occurs in the main user. There is a reason for this problem? And I can do something to fix it?

How much memory do you have? Did you try Wipe cache partition?

"* I only can acess the header menu*" -- by which, should I assume you mean Status Bar and the Quick Settings Menu?

300Mb free RAM, 1Gb free Disk. Yes, It is Status bar and the Quick Settings Menu. Also, if I try to open the Configuration Menu when my Android freezes, it not launch.

I didn't tried wipe cache partition, also i don't know how it works. Can I lose some important data trying it?

I wiped my cache partition but the problem stills


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Will my geographical positions be tracked and stored in the google location history when my internet connection is temporarily interrupted?
I'm about to travel to a region where I will not have Internet connection.
I'm going to activate the location services during this time.(switch GPS on and allow position tracking). Will my GPS positions be recorded and my Google location history updated as soon as I reconnect to the Internet, or do I need a location Logger app?
If I need a separate app, is it possible to add the recorded tracks to the Google location history later?

So, after my vacation I know for certain that it is possible to record the positions without an open internet connection.
As soon as an app requests a position (in my case an offline map app)  this position will be stored (cached) by the location services from google.
The positions will be transferred to google as soon as an connection has been established.
I have no details about the number of positions that will be handled this way.


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Can I add a Wi-Fi connection to the Trust Agent so as to avoid unlocking phone at home?
I have the Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 which runs Android 5.0.2. Is it possible to add a Wi-Fi connection to the "Trust Agent", so  that I don't have to unlock my phone when I'm at home?
I have found how to add Bluetooth/NFC and locations using the Location service, but none of them are really suitable for what I want.

Hi, I edited the question. Please use backticks only for code or code like text.

Thanks,  I didn't realise they were only for code.

authors: bóng đá cá cược


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Today I read that flash write performance diminishes with use. I'm a heavy user. Should I change my behavior?
My phone
I own a phone with gigabytes of built-in flash memory.  My phone also includes a physical MicroSD card slot.  I don't own a MicroSD card to put in the slot, and have never bothered buying one, but am not opposed to the idea of buying one.
I perhaps make heavier use of my phone's flash memory than most people.

I run a freeware sleep tracker app most nights, all night long.  It has many features.  Its most storage-intensive feature?  It records sound for at least part of every night.

I have Debian Linux installed on my phone as well (even though the phone is not rooted).  I launch Debian when desired using an app named GNURoot Debian.  Debian Linux is normally stored on an SSD designed to handle an enormous number of write cycles, or on a hard drive which can also handle numerous write cycles — not on a smartphone flash memory chip.

I have perhaps a hundred apps installed, and the Google Play store automatically updates some of them from time to time.

I make heavy use of a game which was designed for use on Windows and Linux, but has been ported to Android.  Every time I move between floors of the game world, the game saves some information to disk.  I suspect that, in practice, it rewrites at least part of the game's save file.

The problem
David Cary has more than 10,000 reputation points on Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange.  In one post there, Mr. Cary writes:

Flash memory has relatively quick read times but much longer write times. For example, with a Numonyx M25P80-VMW6G 75MHz 8 Mbit serial flash, reading a sector of data (at 75 MHz) requires 7 milliseconds, while erasing and writing new data to a sector is typically 0.6 seconds (max 3 seconds).
In other words, writing this flash memory typically takes 85 times as long as reading, and in the worst case writing a sector takes over 400 times as long as reading. (That's not even taken into account the inefficiencies of partial-sector updating).
In my experience, the time it takes to erase and rewrite a particular sector of flash continues to increase with each erase/rewrite cycle, but read times stay constant.

I don't know that much about hardware, but let's assume that Mr. Cary's experience will be true for my phone too.
My question
I don't like spending money unnecessarily, and it sometimes takes me great effort to choose a phone to buy.  When I buy a phone, I like to treat it well and to keep on using it for five to ten years or more — unless it breaks so badly that this becomes absolutely impossible.
Certain operations on my phone are annoyingly slow, such as Debian Linux automatic software update checks (apt-get update) and others.  I don't know whether or not they're slow because of the time it takes to write to flash or because of other reasons.
Anyway, assuming that the issue which Mr. Cary has raised above is a real issue, should I worry about it?  Should I change my behavior because of it — for example, by moving GNURoot Debian from the phone's built-in flash memory to a MicroSD card inserted into the correct slot?
Note
I have left this question mostly device-agnostic.  This is because I'd like to apply what I learn both to the device which I own and any other Android devices which I may buy in the future.
Related

"Does Android suffer from the same 'over a period of time' performance degradation that OSes like Windows do?"
Also see the final section of a long answer by Izzy, where he discusses fstrim.

Accepted answer doesn't take erase block size into consideration.  Check this or this. Also is wrong on 1M write cycle count. It is just 10k. Check write endurance section in wiki

As a user, and not a developer, this is not an effect you should concern yourself with. For operations like disk defragmentation or use of flash memory as virtual memory, the sustained high disk write rates can wear out flash memory quickly. But "normal" usage by a human will not produce enough writes to create a wear issue.
Let's take the sleep app as an example and estimate how many writes this will cause on a wear-leveled disk. Suppose the app collects 128 kilobit / second audio to store uncompressed and runs and collects audio at all times for 5 years. (128 kilobits / second) * (128 bytes / kilobit) * (5 years) * (365 days / year) * (24 hours / day) * (60 minutes / hour) * (60 seconds / minute) ~= 5.17 * 10^11 bytes. On a wear leveled disk of 1 GB ~= 10^9 bytes, this will be (5.17 * 10^11) / (10^9) ~= 517 cycles over the 5 years, which is well below the expected 100,000 cycles for current flash memory.
Also, note that almost all SSDs are currently built from flash memory, so there is no significant difference between the storage for your Android phone and that in a consumer SSD for a laptop/desktop in terms of expected aging issues.

EDIT
If you are really worried about this, I would benchmark your storage performance. I don't think it is a good assumption that erase/write operations take 0.6 seconds; your flash memory is not the same as that used in the example figures.
This empirical evaluation of flash memory gives actual figures for degradation. The magnitude of the effect is not that large for cycles in the low thousands.

For now, not upvoted.  My question is not about memory failure (due to the fact that flash memory has a finite number of program–erase cycles).  Instead, my question is about memory slowdown — about Mr. Cary's statement that the time it takes to erase and rewrite a particular sector of flash continues to increase with each erase/rewrite cycle.  But your question talks about "memory wear", which is a term which (in my limited knowledge) is usually used in order to discuss how many cycles you can undergo before failure.

In what situation do you expect the flash memory write times on your device to be a performance bottleneck?

I don't know.  1)  Recently, I decompressed a 27 MB compressed archive (the source code of a game, plus dependencies) in GNURoot Debian, and I was annoyed at how many minutes it took.  I'm not sure whether the operation was CPU-bound or disk-bound, and didn't check.  2)  Let's assume that, even on my device, erasing and writing new data to a sector takes 0.6 seconds or more.  That's a long time.  Is it possible that some of the software on my device (though I don't know which software) might wait for certain write operations to finish before continuing operation?

apt-get update/upgrade is likely to be slow because of CPU (based on experience with the Raspberry Pi). Decompressing archives is pretty strenuous.

Dear mattm: I looked at the paper you linked to. It seems that the slowdowns may be more gradual than I thought. And, as you point out, my device probably uses wear leveling, which also helps. And indeed, I suspect the flash chip which Mr. Cary used in his example is smaller (and probably older and slower) than the Samsung KLM8G2FE3B-B001 chip which is used in my Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G. Upvoted and accepted. Thank you!

This doesn't take erase block size into consideration. Check this or this.Also is wrong on 1M write cycle count. It is just 10k. Check write endurance section in wiki

I would say it depends on your hardware. For example, some Samsung devices (e.g. Note 4) are known to have eMMC flash chip that is prone to fail if too much data is written during the lifetime of the phone. I had to replace eMMC (the motherboard in practice) of my Samsung S4 Mini LTE due it failed after being written too much over time.
However, most phone hardware has too slow SD card writer for your use case, even if you get the best A1 class cards (for more information about A1 vs A2 cards for Android usage, see Should I get A1 or A2 spec'd Micro SD card for my phone?). The major problem you have is the usage of apt within the Debian installation. The apt usage is problematic because apt tries really hard to keep your system fully functional even in case of power loss during any update. As a result, it is really really sync happy and will wait for permanent storage to confirm all writes every so often before continuing.
If you can accept the possibility of losing your Debian environment due out of battery situation, you can mount your debian partition noatime,async,nobarrier and your performance should improve.


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Recover data from a Nexus 4
The touch screen has stopped working. The side buttons still work.
No backups to any cloud services/pc and no sd card. No special apps installed.
Am I able to recover the data? I don't have any special equipment.

Which Android version?

You can take backup of stuff in Internal SD card easily at this point (provided that you didn't check "Charge only" the last time you connected the device into PC). If the USB debugging is on, then you can backup App's data as well. And if you've root access, then you can backup lots of things. // Your phone boots well, right? -- Only touch screen is unresponsive, but the display and Android is fine.

@Firelord I am on the latest Android version I believe. I don't believe debugging was on and I am not sure about the "Charge only" option as I dont get any options when I plug it into the computer. Nothing happens when I plug it in. The device isn't rooted. Yes its just the touch screen that is unresponsive, it boots fine.


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Can I change or remove Touchwiz in Galaxy S4 running Lollipop?
I just upgraded my Galaxy S4 to Lollipop. It is not to my liking. I'm considering options to buy a non Android phone just so I don't have to look at it.
Is there anything I can do about this?

What is it you don't like? Is it the icons, the new ui, any new functions. If it is everything i will post instructions on how to install a previous version of android.

The colors are terrible, the animations are terrible, the icons are terrible.. in short, everything. I like the way this looks: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Android_5.0-en.png So maybe a tutorial on removing TouchWiz?

If it is the launcher that you don't like the look of, install a launcher from Google Play.
Or if the whole UI is not what you like then install a custom android rom, like CyanogenMod

TouchWiz Launcher can be replaced with any other launcher to your liking from Google Play Store. If you plan on removing TouchWiz altogether, I suggest flashing a custom ROM specific to your device.
See this article here for details on flashing your phone.

Is it possible to install just plain, default Android?


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Nexus 4 won't charge or boot (red light)
I have been reading a bunch of articles on ways to fix this "red light" issue. My issue seems a bit different from most articles as the red light does not show up when I plug in my charger. Articles I have read seems like most "red light" appears when they have the charger plugged, but my issue is that the red light only shows up when I have my charger plugged AND holding down the power button for several seconds. Without holding down the power/power+volume down button, the red light doesn't blink at all.
What I have tried:

Unscrewing the two screws for the battery, as some article has stated
it was a design flaw where the screws tighten causes the battery
connector to not work.
Replaced battery with a new one, nothing    different, still
unresponsive phone.
Left charger plugged into phone    for 24 hours, phone does not get
warm/hot so I doubt the charger is    even charging the phone. (no
red light)
Used Qi wireless charger,    phone got really warm but still nothing.

If anyone had this issue and solved it, please inform me on how you did so. I'm not sure if it is a battery issue or some other component but would like to get to the bottom of this. Before this happened, my phone was being charged using a car charger and I noticed the charger was loose so the charging indicator kept blinking on and off rapidly. I believe that may have drained the battery to 0% but I did replace the battery with a new one and issue was not fixed. Hope the seller didn't send me a dead battery as well.

I am having the same problem, with no red light when charging a nexus 4.
I changed the usb cable and it charged.
The problem came back however. I just noticed that if I held down the buttons while inserting the cable, the red light came back on.
After a while, it started blinking, and charged fully.
I use my nexus4 for development, so it is on for days even weeks in a row, which is not good for the battery.
Also most computer usb sockets dont provide half the current that a dedicated usb charger does, and that is what flattened the battery.
It would be nice if I could bypass the battery completely, since this one is always tethered to the workstation.

My experience is that it happens, if the batteries are old and they are completely depleted. Probably somehow the characteristics of such batteries changes so, that the power of the system can't handle it. With load batteries it would work, even if they are old.
You can power on a Nexus4 with no batteries, purely from USB, but it will be very unstable and will power off after some seconds. This is another modus what its power system can't handle.
Now the problem is, that typically only the Nexus4 can load a battery. If the methods of @DominicCerisano's excellent answer don't work, you might try to re-charge the battery without the device, roughly so ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIazSD44WKc ). This video doesn't show a battery re-charge without the phone, but a battery test. But external recharge works on the same way (instead of the measurement unit, use a simple power source. Avoid reverse polarity!)
In general, if your batteries aren't very good, use a dedicated charger without a PC. Most PC motherboards are incapable to give the required power. There are many differences in quality even in the dedicated chargers; you can play with them by experience. Even some usb cable can harm the charging, particularly the thin ones.


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Asus Zenfone 5 stuck at obtaining IP address from office's Wi-Fi, but works well on other Wi-Fi
I have an Asus Zenfone 5 running Android 4.3. Most of the Wi-Fi I try to connect to gets connected to the device, but when I try to connect it to my office's Wi-Fi it get stuck at obtaining IP address.
How should I resolve this issue?

These steps fixed the obtaining ip adress error for me:
Go to Wi-Fi settings and choose the network that's causing this error. Follow these steps

Choose “modify network”
Enable- Show advanced options
Change IP Settings (which is DHCP by default)to “Static”
Now you should see a bunch of advanced options
Assign a new IP address >> Tap "Save"

You can check out my detailed post about this error here: valuestuffz.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-to-fix-stuck-at-obtaining-ip-android-device.html

It seems you're affiliated with the site you linked. Mind to disclose it by [edit] it? Otherwise, it could be seen as attempted to spam.

Thanks Andrew for the heads up. I hope I have cleared that up now.

In my case, it can be happen if your office use static ip. You must obtain ip address from office network admin, and then apply that ip on your zenfone 5.
You can setup it on Wifi -> Advanced options -> IP Settings set to static and then input all the things like ip, gateway, and DNS.
I hope this answer help you.


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Prevent Glympse from stopping sending my location due to low battery
How can I configure Glympse so that it doesn't stop sending my location due to low battery?

Screenshot - (Click to enlarge image)

I haven't found any solution so far.

So I am still interested if someone has any idea.


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Asus Zenfone 6 doesn't see SIM cards, keeps booting itself. How to troubleshoot the issue?
I have a problem with Asus Zenfone 6 device, which worked well on stock firmware with minimal amount of additional installs for about a year. This is a dual SIM phone and it has both SIM card slots used.
At some point the device stopped "seeing" both SIM cards, and started self-booting (gracefully, with reboot notice) every 2-3 minutes.
A sequence of factory resets and firmware updates did not solve SIM card problem. Other than this, the phone worked well: recovery, installed new firmware, WiFi etc. The situation got better with last firmware update coming with Android 5: the phone simply does not see SIM cards now, without rebooting itself any longer.

While I tend to think it is simply a hardware problem, how do I go about troubleshooting the problem from as a developer?
I have adb connection, I can grab logs (adb logcat, adb bugreport) which contain lots of data, I can connect via shell. It is a lot of data, what do I check there specifically?
Or, how do I check hardware configuration to detect details of anomalies (missing SIM related devices or configurations), or hardware related logs?

try adding a small piece of tissue on the top of the sim card slot, i have the same problem and it seems like the slot is loosen up, so you will need something to keep the slot pushed down , for example : paper, tissue, etc. but , tissue works the best.

authors: Маргарита Олеговна


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How can I root a Lenovo S660?
I want to root Lenovo S660 and I came to know that Framaroot will help me in doing that; however, it doesn't work.
On this site it says that
after installing framaroot click Boromir and it will pop up a SUCCESS dialog (the device is rooted). But it doesn't happen for me and the device does not get rooted.
What are Boromir, Faramir, and Barahir?

Those are most possibly three vulnerabilities known about your system. Each of them named as the ones you mentioned. If one vulnerability (name) doesn't work then try the other one.

related http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/37693/how-to-root-lenovo-a660/116513#116513


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ADB full backup restore command stuck on restoring app Clean Master
I have a full backup file using adb backup command. When I try to restore the full backup file using adb restore command it always displays "Unfortunately Clean Master has stopped working" while restoring the package of Clean Master app com.cleanmaster.mguard.
adb logcat - (too long to paste it here)
How can I skip the clean master app package alone while restoring the full backup?

I'm restoring the full adb backup file after factory resetting. Nothing is installed on my phone. I've cleared all the data and only pre-installed apps are present in my system.

Other option is to remove the folder having that app's backup inside your backup file. You can use Android Backup Extractor to convert .ab into .tar then remove the folder and then convert back to .ab. All instructions are in its README. Needs JRE to run.

@Firelord The Android Backupk Extractor gives me javax.crypto.BadPaddingException: Given final block not properly padded. I've raised an issue on the github link https://github.com/nelenkov/android-backup-extractor/issues/33

Did you encrypt the backup using a password? That error isn't specific to ABE.

From the next time, you might wanna consider Izzy's Adebar. It takes separate app backup, so you can easily  avoid the one you don't want to restore.

Thanks @Firelord. Yes, I have encrypted backup file and I'm entering the right password. The backup is 5.69GB and the output .tar file is 6.01GB and I can even open the tar file without any errors. But I'm just not sure I have fully extracted the backup file or some files are skipped due to this error. I've also used Helium to backup my app data. I can use that for individual apps but I also need picture and videos and other stuff from that backup.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

I removed the clean master app data from the backup and re-created the backup.ab file again using the Android Backup Extractor(ABE). It seems that the backed up file was corrupted and couldn't able to restore it properly. So I suggest to,

use the adb backup command atleast twice to make sure the backup is fully completed and compare both file are same sized ones
( OR )
extract the backup file using ABE as .tar export and make sure the extracted .tar file can be opened without any errors.

Since I also had app backups using Helium Backup(Carbon) app, I was able to restore my app data using the Helium app. And all the shared data folder contents I moved from the extracted .tar file to my device via an USB cable manually.


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Is it possible to get caller location by GPS?
I know there is another question about that but I don't have the ability to comment there and it's an old question. So, I need some update on the topic:

is it possible now to get a location of the mobile phone caller, at least city and country?
Let's say we have an app installed on both phones (being called and caller). Is it technically possible to share GPS location between these two within that app, so they can see the location of each other constantly, even when travelling?
In other words, is it possible to send GPS location from one phone to the other?

For #1, Are you asking about for applications, or regular phone calls? Who is trying to find the location?

I rather think of creating an app that allows such functionality during the call, or so.

Any mobile phone provider needs to be able to route calls to the correct tower to service a phone, so they must know to at least the location to the accuracy of the tower cell area. Generally speaking, this information is not available to parties in a telephone call.
An application can read the location at any time, and gets this as latitude and longitude. It is up to you to do a lookup of the city and country from this information.

Yes. A phone application gets location information as latitude and longitude, and the applications can simply exchange these values as strings over the data network.


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Disable swipe down to reload a page in Chrome browser
While filling out an HTML form, I accidentally swiped down and lost all my filled information because the browser reloaded the page. Is it possible to deactivate this swipe down functionality?
My Android version is 4.1.2 and I'm having the Chrome latest version.

As an interim suggestion, if you are trying to scroll the page be swiping just make sure not to begin the swipe from the top of the screen downwards (given that you can't scroll past the top anyways).  I don't see an option for this in Chrome's settings.

It is possible to disable the feature in Chrome browser version 41 and above. The easiest way to disable this is to visit the chrome://flags in your Chrome address bar and to disable the pull to refresh effect,
chrome://flags (disable-pull-to-refresh-effect)

Preventing the pull-to-refresh effect:(Based on this Chromium docs)

The default action of the pull-to-refresh effect can be effectively
  prevented by doing any of the following :

Applying “touch-action:
  none” to touch-targeted elements, where appropriate, disabling default
  actions (including pull-to-refresh) of the touch sequence.
Applying
  “overflow-y: hidden” to the body element, using a div for scrollable
  content if necessary.
preventDefault’ing some portion of the touch
  sequence, including any of the following (in order of most disruptive
  to least disruptive):

The entire touch stream (not ideal).
All top
  overscrolling touchmoves.
The first top overscrolling touchmove.
The
  first top overscrolling touchmove only when

1) the initial touchstart
  occurred when the page y scroll offset was zero and
2) the touchmove
  would induce top overscroll.

Disabling the effect locally via
  chrome://flags (disable-pull-to-refresh-effect).

Note that the pull-to-refresh effect will never activate if any
  scrolling occurs before the overscrolling motion, e.g., if the user
  first scrolls down, then back up, or if the page scroll offset is 0
  but has a scrolling div that the user scrolls up before overscrolling.

Note:
The pull-to-refresh swipe down feature is added to Chrome version 41.0.2272.92. So any version below that won't be have the pull-to-refresh feature.

Very cool, and a nice detailed answer.

This option appears to be no longer available  at chrome//flags.


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Nvidia Shield OTA Updates and Rerooting
I own an Nvidia Shield tablet, and Nvidia has released an update to Android 5.1. I have a rooted device and may upgrade soon. So I have some questions:

Will I be able to install this while rooted?
If I tried, could it brick my device?
If I installed it would it unroot me?
If so how would I re-root? I rooted by unlocking the bootloader and installing CWM by the instructions at here.
I unlocked the boot-loader, if I re-root, would it erase my data or brick my device?

Probably Not.
Android updates before Lollipop checked each system file and replaced them but after Lollipop, the updates check the whole system block as a part and update it. Since rooting modifies the system files, the System Block won't match and the update will abort.
Since you have a custom recovery, the update won't even go that far because you need Stock Recovery to install it.
TL;DR: Attempting to update won't brick your device; but why leave it to chance?
On the off chance you install stock recovery and proceed with the update and it works, yes, you would loose root. You can reroot the same way you did it before.


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How do I connect my Android Device to an external touchscreen?
I would like to know if there is any chance to connect my device to an external, touch sensitive display, such as ordinary touchscreen monitors. If yes, then how do I do that?
There are many solutions out there or coming up that would might be an option but I could not find anything related being close enough to my question.
Those solutions are:

Matchstick
PiCast
AllCast
Raspberry Pi

I found similar reads:

How can I connect an Xperia X8 to an external monitor?
USB touchscreen on Android 4.0.3 -> not possible to select (only moving the pointer)
Connecting Android tablet to external Touch screen

But the final end user friendly step is still missing.
It would be nice to have a kind of reversed iDisplay, simple and user friendly. I just don't want to buy anything additional just for the bigger screen when my smartphone has already all the necessary hardware.


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error on "install and update" to lollipop 5.1.1 in nexus 6
I have nexus 6 with lollipop 5.0.1. There is setting to install and update to 5.1. I download and install. But facing error on half way. Showing android icon with error text. How should I do that?

What is the error text that is being displayed? Have your restarted the mobile and tried to update?

I don't remember exactly, but it contains "error". It restarted when update.

I think you are running into the same problem reported over here by fellow Nexus 4/5/7 users on the google product forum page.
Error during updating to 5.0.1
Some of the suggestion found there,

Wipe cache partition
Factory reset. (Warning! This erases all data on your phone)
Unroot your phone if you are rooted.

But none of them seems to completely work will all other Nexus users. But you can give it a try if you are sure about each of the process. As the accepted answer posted by a Google Employee confirms that there is a bug and they are still investigating this issue,

As several of you have noticed, a new update (still labeled 5.0.1) is
  currently being sent to the Nexus 5 that addresses this issue. If
  you've got a Nexus 5 but haven't received the update yet, please be
  patient as it should be available for your device soon.
Please note that we're still investigating this issue for other
  devices (so far I've seen reports from Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 owners) but
  I don't have further updates or a workaround to suggest at this time.
  We appreciate your patience as we continue to look into this for other
  devices.

thanks Lucky, I didn't fount this solution. I will try it.


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Are there any browsers out there that don't drop my browsing session?
I own a Samsung Galaxy S3 ( rooted, not custom-rommed, and running kernel 4.3 ), and often, I would be browsing an interesting site, or an article, and I would get back to work ( hehe ;). Hours later, to my chagrin, I would find that my browser dropped my browsing session, and I'd have no idea on how I landed on said article. Currently, I'm using worst-of-the-worst stock browser, Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Dolphin, and InBrowser, and the closest to do this is Opera. The problem that I have with Opera, is that when I'm browsing privately, the problem I just described happens within ten minutes of switching to another task.

Set a bookmark before going to sleep. I'm assuming you're working for the government.

In Firefox, do you set your tabs to"always restore"?

App suggestions/recommendations are off-topic here (see [help/on-topic] to know more).  I recommend an edit since the question does have on-topic issue.

@ott: I'm not sure whether to take your assumption as a complement or an insult.

@xangua: When using firefox, I do set it to restore tabs, but a) firefox is a memory hog, which is why I no longer use it, b) when it restores tabs, it seems to forget some of them and duplicate others.

@Firelord: Lamentations. -_- Where should I move the question to?


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Google Rewards for in-game purchasing
I have several gmail account each has its own rewards account. How can I use the accumulated rewards dollars for "in-game" purchases?

If you're talking about your Google Play Store balance, you can pick that as an option from the payment dropdown on your device the same way you would pick one of your credit cards, or carrier billing. However, in my experience you have to have a balance large enough to cover the entire purchase -- you can't split it between store credit and another type of payment.


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Tilting Huawei Ascend Mate 2 just right displays a gray screen with a clock
I can be in a game or any other up, but when I tilt my phone back a little to avoid glare, this notification thing comes up with a clock. If I hold it just right and scroll right it shows me the weather and the status of my internet, data, bluetooth and GPS.
It is really annoying and I have no idea how to stop it from happening. I am trying to snap a screenshot of this and if I manage to, I will upload it.
Any ideas?

Are you using a cover, or near a magnet? Seems an issue related to [tag:smart-cover] (example: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/109346/phone-switches-to-watch-interface-when-put-against-a-specific-side-of-my-laptop)... does the notification look like this?


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How do I downgrade my android software from 5.1 back to 4.4.2 on my Nvidia Shield Portable?
So I decided to download the new software and I cant stand it. I don't have a computer to plug the device into.  So can and how do I do this?

Can't stand what exactly?

If you have a rooted Android device, yes it is possible to downgrade your device. You must have a custom recovery installed on your device that is specifically for your phone model and either a stock ROM of the Android version you wish that is also very specific with your phone model or you could install a  custom ROM (I.e. CyanogenMod). You must then install the ROM by using the custom recovery.
If you don't have a rooted device, I'm afraid it's not possible.


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Sony Xperia Z1 randomly rebooted and when it came back up, apps on the SD card read "Application not found"
Just last night I was moving apps to my SD card and the phone (Sony Xperia Z1) randomly restarted. When it came back up, all the apps on my SD card no longer worked. Their icons became generic with a tiny SD card in the bottom corner.
When I tap an app, I get the message "Application not found". I've tried un-mounting and removing the SD card, restarting, clearing cache, but nothing works.
When I go to the App Store, the apps show up as if they need to be installed but when I look at the SD card via my PC, all the files are there still. The pictures and videos are still accessible from the phone however. Before that, I had problems moving a game to the SD card. I kept getting a "Not enough memory" error, even though all the other movable apps moved and I deleted apps to make space.
I tried options I found on the forums and other websites but to no avail, and the only thing I haven't done yet is to root my phone, which I am trying to avoid.

Maybe I can help with part of your question.  I too have had a 'Not Enough Space' issue.  I deleted a bunch of files and off-loaded more, still I could not move or edit other files.  Going to settings and checking 'Device' 'Storage' the operating system indicated that I had over 2/3 of my internal memory available.
I found that if I power cycled the device it would reset the file space available counter in another part of the operating system.  I also found that I could not count on my deletions or moves being deleted or moved unless I used the Power Cycle trick very soon after preforming the deletions or moves.

I think this is probably the fault of the SD card, not Android. It sounds to me like your SD card is corrupted.
I had a somewhat similar problem once, but not exactly the same. Every once in a while icons for all image files I put on the external micro SD card would change from thumbnails to gray squares with black keyholes, and the files would become inaccessible. I was able to open other files I had stored, and new image files I put on the SD card were okay at first, but later turned into the unopenable keyhole icons. Then I started getting error messages claiming I was out of memory when only a fraction of the space was used. I reformatted the card and tried copying some images to it. The error messages about being out of memory were gone, but a couple of weeks later the images became inaccessible again, with the gray keyhole icons.
The solution was to throw the SD card in the trash and get a new one. I haven't seen these problems again in the year and a half since then.


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How to recover game data from a smashed phone?
Hey guys so it happens my Dad has been having a huff lately because he smashed his phone screen and he can't remember the password to his gmail account however he has months of game data stored on the device snd he's angry because he doesn't want to start again lol any advice?

Does the device itself have a passcode? Either way, the device is probably accessible through USB. Get ADB, plug the device into a computer, and using ADB (hopefully USB debugging was enabled before your dad sent it to hell) first type adb devices to make sure your computer sees the phone. If you're successful, you'll see your phone get listed on the screen. Then type adb backup -all -f C:\Backups\Android.ab This will create an Android backup file. You'll need to get an android backup extractor in order to retrieve your data files (like this. Google is your frienemy...;) Hopefully, this will resolve your problem. Good luck!


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Is there a way for Tasker to notify me when a background app is using the voice recorder or the camera?
Is there a way for Tasker to notify me when a background app is using the voice recorder or the camera?
I'm trying to find out which app is accessing the voice recorder in the background. Sometimes when I use the video recorder, I get a message saying the voice recorder is being used by another app.

Trying to find out which app is accessing the voice recorder in the background. Sometimes when I go to use the video recorder, I get a message saying the voice recorder is being used by another app.

Are you concerned about your privacy? If so then I have a solution to prevent apps from accessing those features and will provide an answer for you.

I'll give you a bigger hint, though it requires a rooted Android. The system service media.camera would show the PID of the process currently using the camera (front/rear individually). The service media.player would give you the PID of the process currently recording voice from microphone and saving it into a file. It doesn't seem to mention a process if the latter is not saving the input in a file. I may be wrong though. media_router may also come handy. All of them can be accessed using dumpsys command. E.g. dumpsys media.camera.

Tasker cannot interact with background apps, and thus cannot detect if a background app is active or using the voice recorder. What Tasker can do, via Tasker Process Running (KC) is detect what processes, including apps, are running. if you store this data in some way whenever the error appears, you can look for correlations between running processes and the error.
Note: Have you Googled around to see if your error is common with your device, app, or OS version?

If I am not mistaken Tasker Process Running checks if a particular app is running, it doesn't dump a list of running apps. So he should manually create a task that checks if each app is running or not, and store the results in a boolean array.


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Using Android phones with two antennas to programmatically transmit wifi and bluetooth at the same time
I'm trying to see if there are any phones that have separate wifi and bluetooth antennas. I know that certain phones such as the galaxy S5 have two antennas for use in MIMO (2x2MIMO), which helps them get better wifi performance. However, is it possible to use one internal antenna for bluetooth and another internal antenna for wifi? I'm wondering whether the manufacturer might have restricted it to one function only / maybe if I can get around this via root.
Also, sorry if this is the incorrect place to post this. Just let me know where I should move it and i will do so.
Thanks!

I guess this will depend whether Wifi and BT share an antenna at all in the device. If they do and it is MIMO I doubt you can use one of the MIMO antennas for Wifi and the other for BT.


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Moving apps to SD Card to free up space
I recently bought an Alcatel OneTouch phone and put in a 64gb sd card, but now I have insufficient storage?? How do I get my apps to the SD CARD (there is no "Move to SD Card" option) and free up some space?
I already went to Settings -> Storage -> Default Write Disk -> SD Card but that doesn't seem to do much of anything.
Why would someone create an android phone which an SD Card did nothing?
I understand I can move pictures to it, but the apps take the most amount of space.
Thanks.
I have Android 4.4.2

How to free Internal Storage by moving data or using symlink / bind-mount with Adoptable Storage?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.a0soft.gphone.app2sd
Download it...Enjoy moving apps to SD cards.
Note: moving apps to SD will not FULLY move the file - It simply allocates the majority of the file size to the SD card and leaves behind a trace amount (not entirely sure why) - so even if you move EVERYTHING to the SD card, you will notice that your phone memory is still lower than it would be if you have no apps..but still leaving much more than if the apps were on your phone memory :)
edit
For clarity...I have no association with that app or its developer(s), it's just simply the app I selected to use many moons ago and often recommend it, there may be better or sleeker options, but I am far too lazy to look when this one does the job just fine! :D

Does it do anything extra that Android does not offer? Their FAQ states: "Moving app to SD is handled by Android. App 2 SD app only provides an UI for you to manage it."

That wording is quite vague...What that is basically saying is, that although Android does actually complete the task, App2SD actually gives you a GUI to be able to access that function.  On my phone (HTC Desire HD) I have no menu options to be able to do this without the use of an app like this :)

I actually tried this app and it says push the "Move to SD Card" button but that button does not exist, so sadly this app does not help. Thanks though.

No idea then.  It has worked for me without fail on both the HTC Desire HD and a Samsung Galaxy Europa.  Maybe you missed something, or maybe the phone simply doesn't allow it.


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Audio applications (spotify etc) continue playing when bluetooth calls come in
When I'm in my car and listening to the ESPN Radio app, the Spotify app, or the Soundcloud app, and I receive a call either on my bluetooth or the d/c phone itself, the audio application keeps playing the podcast or music over top the call. This only happens some of the time, sometimes it pauses as it should.
Also, this may be related. If I get in the car after using spotify on headphones, it will start playing on the bluetooth even if I had paused and closed the app long before. I'm not sure if it's related, but it's more strange bluetooth issues.
My phone is a completely up to date Samsung Galaxy S5 with no alterations like being jailbroken or anything. Just a base model S5. My carrier is ATT.

Have you ever tried to reset your phone?


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How to enable Vibrate on call connect?
I am using Android lollipop 5.1.1 on Google Nexus 5. I used to have a feature on Nokia feature phone, which would vibrate the phone when the person at other end picks up the call. I want this kind of feature on Nexus 5. I have no root. How do I do it?

Go to Settings → Sounds,  scroll to bottom and tap Also Vibrate For Calls.

I noticed that it only vibrates when I receive call, not when someone picks up my call.

Sorry, but I'm not sure this is possible without root. You may be able to use a third party app but there is no "built-in" feature like this


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samsung tablet not connecting to my wifi router
I have a samsung galaxy tablet. Before 2 days it was connecting to my home wifi router. But now it is not getting connected to the router and it can not find the home wifi network. all other surrounding wifi networks are detected except my home wifi network. I have tried to factory reset many times but still same. need help

Have you tried using WPS? Also, it may be a router problem. What is your router?

Did you change the wifi frequency band at your router? Some devices don't support 5 GHz.

@PediT. is right, and in such cases, the Wi-Fi doesn't show up. So, did you change the settings of the router? Other than that, which Samsung tablet and Android version is it?


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Using Android device as a loudspeaker
I have a class of 100 students, and I have an idea to use my mobile as a loudspeaker so I don't have to shout.
Alternatively, it should work like an amplifier system. The difference is that the input is the mobile, the amplifier is the mobile and the output is a USB speaker connected to it.
Is it possible to do that?

You can use a microphone app like Microphone by Gaz Davidson.
There is a lag, but then again your phone isn't a full blown stereo mixer.


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How do I revert back to stock recovery after unrooting on Nvidia Shield Tablet
I need to update my Nvidia Shield Tablet (running  Android 5.0.1) to the latest version so that I can check if it contains a faulty battery type. To update I presume that I needed to remove root access and CWM that I installed using a guide.
I have ran a full unroot on SuperSU. Now, all that is left is to return to the stock recovery. How do I do this?
The guide I used is here.

No need to unroot or to flash stock recovery. I dont have the link to the LTE version, but this is for the WIFI ONLY tablet, you can download the OTA from here. And flash using your favorite custom recovery. I did this last night and I flashed it through TWRP no problems, It took a little longer than normal to flash, but it did go through after about ~3 mins. On a side note, mine is one of the recalled ones. =(
You can find all of the OTA's for both the LTE and WIFI here. You do have to sign up, but it was quick and painless to sign up.
Edit: For those that are wondering, After I flashed the OTA via TWRP. I flashed Supersu and had root when I booted the tablet back up.
Edit2: After some more digging and reading, it appears that all the wifi only versions of the tablet use the same firmware, Only the LTE images are different for the US and the rest of the world.

I upvoted this because I had your idea in mind too when I edited that post, but OP seems to be in other direction. I say you advise OP to somewhat edit the post and allow your answer to become perfectly valid, though it's not invalid of course, as of now at least. :) Although it's odd to me how updating would help in checking the faulty battery type, which is the objective to achieve. Any ideas.

@Firelord From what I was reading. Installing the update enables another field in the battery section of the settings > about device > status. To let you know if your batter is Y01 or B01. Y01 seems to be faulty. They also built in a recall "form" that's needed to start the recall process. Furthermore, it seems the update adds a remote kill switch. At least that's what I understand from the RMA email I got from Nvidia. As a reminder, when you set up your new tablet, your old tablet will be deactivated and no longer function.

I haven't had any problems with heat or anything. I am hoping maybe I can put a custom rom on the tablet before turning on the new one and bypass the remote disable that way... =p


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How can I force a complete new sync of my Google contacts to my phone?
I would like to force a fresh download of all my google contacts to my phone (and before delete all the google contacts I do have on my phone ... as the sync on my phone got confused and keeps creating thousands of duplicates which is kind of annoying and slows my phone down quite a bit ...
Is this possible? I guess, I should not delete the contacts on my phone, as might cause to delete the contacts in my google account as well.
Does anyone know where the contacts are cached on the phone? And is it possible to delete the cache in order to force a re-sync?
There are a couple of apps that seem to relate to contacts:

com.android.providers.contacts "Kontakte-Speicher" (Contacts Storage)
com.android.contacts "Kontakte" (Contacts)
com.google.android.syncadapters.contacts "Google Kontakte
synchronisieren" (Google Contacts Sync)

Which of those does store the google contacts?
Are the contacts stored in the data memory or in the cache?

I just realized that my google contact sync got somehow messed up and does not sync anymore. The sync starts and then it stops and shows May 22 as last sync date ... I deleted all the caches of the 3 apps mentioned above - but sync still does not work. Any idea what else I could try?

Update: I removed my Google account from my phone, then deleted all data of the Apps: Contacts, Contacts Storage and Google Contact Sync, rebooted the phone and added my Google account again. Result: All my Google contacts are gone (and the phone is suddenly quite fast again! :-) - however, it does not work to sync my Google contacts back (my LinkedIn contacts are still there). When I go to Settings > Accounts (Google) > my Gmail account it shows that all different apps have synched, however the "sync" icon stays visible for the contatcs, while it disappears for all other Apps after sync.

I really had expected that removing the account will solve the sync issue .... any hints? But actually, this question is answered now, the remaining question is, how to fix my broken sync of contacts

What I did:
I removed my Google account from my phone, then deleted all data of the Apps: Contacts, Contacts Storage and Google Contact Sync, rebooted the phone and added my Google account again. Result: All my Google contacts are gone (and the phone is suddenly quite fast again! :-)
... however, it does not work to sync my Google contacts back (my LinkedIn contacts are still there). When I go to Settings > Accounts (Google) > my Gmail account it shows that all different apps have synched, however the "sync" icon stays visible for the contatcs, while it disappears for all other Apps after sync. –  Pedi T. 1 min ago   edit
I really had expected that removing the account will solve the sync issue .... any hints? But actually, this question is answered now, the remaining question is, how to fix my broken sync of contacts ...

Finally I did a (backup +) factory reset, now it works again.

Just removing the Google account and readding it solved the problem for me.


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In Google Chrome, how do I drag things around on a touchscreen Android device?
Clicking and dragging something from a webpage is easy from a PC. For example, the bar in the screenshot below can be dragged by holding the left mouse button and moving the mouse simultaneously:

My attempts for doing the same in chrome in android:

I tried to move it by dragging but the page moves when I do it.
When I hold over it for some time, a nearby text gets selected and I'm presented with the options to copy, cut , paste etc the selected text.
Tried to attempt both ways from the stock android browser to see if was a problem in chrome, but failed again.

So, How do I do it in chrome in android?
I'm using chrome 44.0.2403.128 with android 4.4.2

Can you provide a sample page?

Sample page: Ask a question or the bar at the bottom of the answer box in this page.

Does it work in Firefox Mobile?

Its just a text area (<textarea> html tag). It can be expanded using a mobile Chrome Browser too. But its just the way the text area is designed by SO that the resizing icons are interplaced with the draggable textarea. You can do that in the comment box too (which is also a text area) on the bottom right of the box. And its optional since you'll be having a scroll bar added to the textarea if content text inside it reaches the max height.

@unforgettableid I don't have firefox to test that

@CoolGuy: Can you install Firefox Mobile for testing purposes? You can get it from the Google Play store or from elsewhere.

@unforgettableid I just installed it and unfortunately faced the same problem.

You can do it with just a mouse (or pen) on pages where it is supported. I tested it with a plain USB mouse on my Moto G running Android 4.4.4.
I resized area for post with bottom right striped triangle on "dotaz nebo sdělení" field with mouse. See this tested page.
Or you can pair an ordinary Bluetooth mouse with your device. Probably any modern Android device includes Bluetooth mouse support.

FYI The example is right here in the comments textarea. It will work here too. ;)

I tried to resize the bar in the screenshot in my question via a USB mouse connected by one of those 'USB to android cables' and it didn't work. The problem that happens when using the touchscreen happens when using the mouse  too.  :-(

On your slider's position, Double tap and hold on second tap. Then move your finger, you'll notice that you're replicating the left click drag from your pc on a touchscreen.

"On your slider's position," -- What? Slider? Where? And I tried the rest of the stuff you said in your answer but when moving my finger up, the page zooms out and when I move my finger down the page zooms in. And, Yes. I move my finger when holding on the second tap after double tapping.

In the red area you marked in your image, double tap on the dotted area

Doesn't work. The problem mentioned in my previous comment happens.

Could you provide the website address? I'll try it out and find out if it works

Click edit on your answer. You'll find the same bar as in the screenshot. Alternatively, press the "Answer Your Question" button below or just go to the Ask Question page or edit any answer.

If I just tap and hold on the control of the text area, I can drag it around, on the condition that you extend it beyond program specified size of the area. Control of text area is the two lines on the right edge of the text area or on the center in the area in your image above.

I don't understand what you're talking. Could you explain?

Your suggestion worked elsewhere. But it is tricky to get it right.

Lol. Have you been trying since August?

Worked by accident. Tried again and found it really hard to get it right. :-)

@AnujBatwe, So what's the answer? Can someone explain? I'm using Pixel 2, can't get it to work.


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Report bug for any app on Google Play
Is there a bug report feature which can be used to report bugs with any app hosted on Google Play?
I'm thinking that most developers will welcome feedback on their apps, so would expect this mechanism to be built into the Play platform; or at least for a service to be available for this purpose.
I've found options to report issues with Google's own apps / the Play platform itself, and obviously some apps have built in a feedback feature, but for many I can't find any way to feed back to the developers.

I think the easiest way to give feedback to a developer is by using the Google Play Store comments; many developers read those comments in order to find out what users like/don't like to improve their applications.

I would wager many developers (particularly indie ones) would prefer an email to a review. They receive no notification for new reviews, so unless they dedicate time to checking them regularly they may not see them in a reasonable timeframe. Every app should have a "contact" link at the bottom of the Play Store listing.

@GiantTree took the words out my mouth

The answer to your question is no, the Google Play Store does not include a built in bug report feature.
In order to submit a bug report, you should first check the developer website to see if such a function is provided.  If not, your best option is to email the developer or, if the issue concerns other users, post a public comment.