text:
Storing data on external SD Card in Android 4 (ICS) for Sony Xperia J?
I searched the web and several forums, but still haven't found a good answer.
I bought a Sony Xperia J. It's a pretty basic phone with Android 4 (ICS). It has 800 MB of Phone memory and 4 GB of Internal storage. I wanted to download Sygic navigation and the maps that I wanted to use. The phone said "not enough space" because Sygic wanted to use 2 GB and I had only 1.4 GB of my Internal storage available.
I thought that if I bought at least 16 GB microSD card, that would solve the problem. No, it didn't, because the stupid phone won't install downloaded apps to the external card. My previous phone (Blackberry Curve) did it all automatically. I just inserted the SD card and the phone downloaded and installed all to the microSD card (I had just 2GB card, because it was enough).
I can store music and pictures on my external card which I download to my phone via USB from my PC. But I want my phone to recognize the external card as an available space to download apps from Play Store and so on.
How can I define my external card as the primary storage? I'm not an expert and I don't really want to root my phone if there's any other way. If the only way is to root it, can anyone write a step-by-step guide for Android ICS?
Thank you all in advance! :)

I've added a possible solution below, but it will require root. For how to obtain root on your device, check with our main index at How do I root my device? if it is already mentioned -- and create a new question for that if it's not. Good luck!

you can try below link, and give feedback to me.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1991583

You can move the apps in your phone memory to your internal storage easily with your app settings. Goto Settings -> Apps and select the apps you want to move. Then click the Move to internal storage button.

Or use an app like App to SD to do this conveniently.

If you want to make your SD card the default location, go through the below steps.

Install android SDK
Connect your device with USB debugging enabled
Run the command Cd C:android-Sdk-Windowsplatform-Tools in cmd
Enter the command adb devices and you should see your attached device listed on the screen.
Enter the command adb shell pm getInstallLocationwhich will show you the current value of InstallLocation of your device. It would be one among the following:

0 [Auto]: Let The Phone Decide The Best Location For An App
1 [Internal]: It Installs Everything In The Internal Storage
2 [External]: It Installs Everything In The Memory Card

Enter the command adb shell pm setInstallLocation 2 to change the install location to external memory.
If everything works fine, you would not see any message on the screen. You can now disconnect your device from the PC.

Refer this for more information and screencaps

Sid, that would only affect apps installed -- and only if the devs explicitly permitted that in their Manifest, and did not specify any other storage as "preferred".

@Izzy there are two methods mentioned. Are you referring to both? :O

I referred to the adb shell pm getInstallLocationwhich (2nd method) -- but this also applies to the 1st method: if the dev did not permit the install-location for his app, you can't move it there.

I know about the option "move to internal storage" but that is the problem. I already have apps in this storage, but I'm running out of space, because of all the installed apps and other stuff. My question is how to move it all (or install automatically) to the addittional SD card I bought. I've already set camera to store pictures on SD card, but apps don't see to have the same option. The only thing I can actually do, is move apps from phone memory to internal memory (still built in memory in the phone) and back. Not to the SD card.

@Rita you want to move apps from one card to another (internal SD card to an external SD card) right? Is there a way to plug an external card into the phone?

I have a workaround that does not require ROOT, at least for your issue with Sygic.  I just used it on my husband's new XPeria J to move Sygic to his external SD, because we had exactly the same issue as @Rita.
Install FX File Manager from the App store.  Then simply cut & paste the Sygix folder from Main Storage to ext_card.  I had my doubts that the app would work after that, but it does!
The original shortcut Sygic installs still opens the program ok & even better, any new maps you download will go into the Sygic folder on the ext_card - so no more filling up that 2GB internal SD.
It doesn't solve the issue of making the ext_card the default, but if you are wary of ROOTing your phone, it is a good alternative.

this app 'FX file manager' is not available currently on the App store.

Until there is a real answer, some hints to, hm, other solutions:
A thread at DroidRzr.com mentions how to Mod External Sd Card To Be Primary. The initial post speaks of a "flashable ZIP", but unfortunately gives no link to it. Further down in the very same thread is a short how-to for rooted users, a similar one can be found at the XDA forum:

mount /system read-write
use a file editor to navigate to /system/etc
locate vold.fstab, make a backup of it (copy it to your card, or copy it to something like vold.fstab.orig), and open it with an editor
scroll down to the line saying # external sd card
below that, change the line reading dev_mount sdcard-ext /mnt/sdcard-ext: to dev_mount sdcard /mnt/sdcard:
scroll further don to # internal eMMC
below that, change the line dev_mount sdcard /mnt/sdcard:: to dev_mount sdcard-ext /mnt/sdcard-ext::
reboot

Now you should have swapped the internal and external card, and the latter should be used by default -- as it was with previous Android versions.
Warning: I have not tried this myself (did not yet succeed in rooting my tablet -- and my phones still run Gingerbread), so do it on your own risk! I will not be liable to... whatever, you know the disclaimer. However, the worst I can imagine happening is that it would not work, and you would neither see your internal nor your external card anymore. In that case, simply restore your backed-up original vold.fstab, and you should return to the state you've started with.
EDIT:
Also for rooted users, but easier to use: On the playstore you can find apps like ICS SD Binder1 and Root External 2 Internal SD2, which should apply above steps automatically (click image to enlarge):

You would need to Root your Android in order to be able to do this.
Once done, you can Link, Map, Move Internal SdCard App Folders to External
This works for any app, game folders. If you know linux, it create symlinks.

You don't need to do all that rooting business.
Just download an app such as Astro Cloud for free, and using that you just move whatever file, video, music etc that you want in a copy and paste way to your ext SD.
In Astro Cloud it explains how to do it. Its really easy to use.

Sony has launched a new line of USB flash drives designed to work with smartphones and tablets as well as PCs. On one end there’s a full-sized USB connector which you can plug into a desktop or notebook. But if you lift the cap, you’ll find it’s hiding a tiny micro USB connector.

You can plug the micro USB connector into most Android phones or tablets and the drive will show up as external storage, allowing you to copy files to and from your mobile device. Then you can plug the other end of the flash drive into your PC.
Currently the drives only work for devices running Android 4.0.3-4.3, but support for Android 4.4 is being addressed. The drives come in 8, 16, and 32GB variants.
Read more here.
Alternatively if your phone has Root, then you maybe interested in Meenova.
This comprehensive review entitled "The Meenova Micro-SD Card Reader for Android" will provide more info, as will this Video Review.

authors: عمران حسین جحفری


text:
Sync MP3 Ratings on Android, with MediaMonkey / MusicBee on Windows
Both MediaMonkey and MusicBee, as music players let you 'rate' songs from 1 to 5 stars.  I would like to have this functionality as well in an Android app.  The main problem is syncing these ratings.  Android apps like NRG Player do have a rating, however if I rate songs using NRG Player, they are not 'understood' by neither MediaMonkey nor MusicBee.  Also, any ratings I give to songs via MediaMonkey or MusicBee are neither understood by the NRG Player.
Is there any app which reads/writes ratings in the same format that either MediaMonkey or MusicBee do?  Or any app which syncs such ratings?

After I posted this question, I found out that 'PlayerPro' music player allows you to choose the type of ratings it saves to.  MediaMonkey is one of them, so this basically is what I needed. Unfortunately, it is not a free app, but for me although this is a tiny feature, this is something I'm willing to pay for.

For your purpose, I'd recommend: Use Media Monkey on your desktop and PlayerPro on your Android mobile.
And if you change ratings or other data while listening to music on mobile (PlayerPro), then export the Music ratings etc in a Songbird XML file (from within PlayerPro>Settings> Music Library> Export Ratings in songbird format) in the mobile and copy that XML file generated to any one particular location on your pc. Then get a MM script named 'Import Music Stats XML' for MMWindows and execute that command from the tools menu. It'll ask for the songbird XML file location and that's it. Both MM and PP will remain in synch. You can change anything in any of these.
Also, if you want to sync/send your chosen media files from PC to Mob automatically, then install MM on your android mobile also, and then you can transfer your chosen music to mob with 1 simple click/synch command. (you can sync the music back to PC also, but then your PP ratings and play count won't sync back. In this case, your android's ratings and play count will synch back to PC).

Simple answer
You can do this with Media Monkey remote app

That doesn't let you play songs on your Android phone.  It lets you see what is playing on the desktop, and control it via your phone.  While this is extremely cool and I will certainly be using it - What I need is a music player for Android, which will allow me to play music and rate them on the phone, and then I can copy them back to the PC and the ratings are read by MediaMonkey.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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

sort: votes


text:
Is it possible to create a VPN connection shortcut on home screen?
I want to be able to connect to my VPN connection whenever I am connected to wifi, is it possible to add a shortcut on the home screen where the widget including wireless, Bluetooth, GPS, sync and brightness options is?

Did you try the answer? Were you successful using it?

@Sid: Not yet, I'd rather do it directly using the phone capabilities without installing those apps. I might try them soon!

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


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Reading pdf books on my phone
When I want to get/download books from Google Play Store, I usually get this notification:

But then I am not sure what to do afterwards to be able to read those pdf books on my phone. I've installed to ebook reader apps (kindle and another one), I also downloaded Google Play books app but I can't find those books exploring in those ebook reader apps and I can't find Google Play Books app on my phone to check whether it is possible to read them there.

What do you mean '..downloaded Google Play books app..' and '..can't find Google Play Books app on my phone..'?

@Sid: This one and by the latter I meant I can't find it among the installed apps on my phone.

Actually I am looking for an elegant way of reading those books I find in the Google Play store on my phone!

you should have the icon in your app drawer. (search through every page carefully) If not, go to your play store app and search to find it. then try uninstalling and reinstalling the app.

@Sid: And then those books will be available from the app?

Yes. it should.

You can download the Google Play Books app from the market (link)
If there is a problem with your installed app, open the app using Play Store app and uninstall and reinstall it. Now you should have the app shortcut in your app drawer.
In this app, you will be able to view your purchased books.

The app will show up as a blue book icon with the label "Play Books" (so you'll find it with the apps starting with "P" if your launcher sorts them alphabetically). Additionally if you're on a PC you can browse to http://books.google.com/  and (once you're logged in) you can click the My Library link (near the bottom of the page) to view and read books you've purchased in the Google Play store.

@GAThrawn: Yes, I knew what it looks like. Thank you. I can only read those book online, right?

@Gigili to read offline, you have to make them available offline and some books may nit be available for offline reading (info)


text:
Number recognition of company number ranges
I would like it, if it was possible to program a number range of a company in my phone as a pseudo-contact.
For example, I know my company has a thousand telephone numbers in a block. I have a number in that range, as have all my co-workers. For some, the number is ofcourse in my address book, and their name shows up correctly. However, I would like to add the whole range, so that in absence of a more specific match, it would still show my company name as the caller.
I doubt if this is possible, but should anybody know of a way, I'd like to hear about it.

But if you know that range, you can check manually if it is a work number or not? I don't think there is an automated solution for it, as far as I know of course.

6+ years later, has anybody found a way to achieve this without a ton of third-party apps? My work wants to have my cell number, but I keep my phone on do-not-disturb all the time. Somehow adding +1-abc-xyz-#### to the address book where the last four digits don't matter would work, but I can't find a way to do that.

I looks like the program suggested (Prefixer) may work. The problem will be "For some, the number is ofcourse in my address book,". I didn't see an "exception" to the rule on those screenshots, so how does it handle numbers that are in the block of numbers AND in the contacts.
As a workaround to an "easy way":
Of course manually inputting the numbers will work. Gmail allows more than a few numbers on a single contact. I don't know what the upper limit is, but you could just make a similarly named contact and max it out too. This would allow you to remove the exceptions from the block. Maybe use another contact software and import the contact if that interface is easier to add multiple numbers.
You could also just do it as they call. I am on 2.3.5 and after the call, when the number is not known it asks me to make a new contact or assign it to an existing one.
EDIT: I couldn't find anything out there that would do this automatically. I now know Google contacts will allow around 3000 contact numbers in one contact. Anymore than that it is starts acting odd (not saving, etc).
Using the tools that are available I have made it work by importing this block from a CSV file. Here are the steps:

Goto my dropbox share at Block Import csv's
Download all the CSV file from that folder
** Might want to turn off syncing contacts on the phone at this point.
Go to google contacts
Choose MORE-->IMPORT-->CHOOSE FILE and choose the csv file (Block Import.csv)
Import (this may take a little while for google to respond depending on your connection speed) A new group will be created called "imported M/DD/YY
Go to that group and choose all the contacts. (check box on the top left)
MORE -->MERGE CONTACTS-->OK It will only do 250 at a time. Be patient, it is very slow.
Rename the contact (something like "Compan Name_1" and remove it from this group and add it to "my contacts"
Repeat steps 6 through 8 until there are no single contacts left. There should be around 34 contacts with 3000 contact numbers in each of them.
Turn syncing back on if you turned it off.

While a bit manual, with patience, it does work. Now, I don't know what that will do to your phone when you try to sync it.

The Prefixer application can only change the calling number into another calling number. I want it to change to a name. I know you could add it to the contacts, but that is impractical. For example, one I would like to add is the complete +32257XXXXX range. I know this is only utilised by the Public Service Finance in Belgium. That are 100k numbers I would need to add.

I mailed the developer of the software, and he responded that in his next release (a couple weeks out), the wanted functionality would be included.

Just discovered that the maximum size for a contact is 128Kb and anything beyond that is just truncated as documented in Google's support page. Just FYI


text:
Pandigital Supernova tv audio problem
I was wondering if anyone has had sucess in getting audio through Mitsubishi 1080 DTV speaker when connecting tablet to tv.  I am using a SIIG  Hdmi to VGA converter with audio.  The video comes through great but when I connect the red and white audio cables the sound comes through for about 2 seconds then nothing.  If anyone has had sucess doing this please tell me what you equipment was used to accomplish this. Thanks

Have you tried playing audio from any other device via the same input? This way you could verify that it's not a problem in the TV. It could also help to test the tablet with another TV.

Thanks for the input.  You want believe this it was the power cord on the converter causing the problem.  I don't know why but when I unplugged it the sound came through prefect.  Thanks for the suggestion.

Glad to hear the problem was solved. You may want to answer your own question and mark the answer as accepted as soon as it's available :)

OP solved the problem:

it was the power cord on the converter causing the problem. I don't know why but when I unplugged it the sound came through prefect.


text:
Galaxy tab 2 10.1 is showing x and y coordinates and mouse lines on the screen
My Galaxy tab 2 10.1 is showing x and y coordinates across the top of the screen. When I swipe my finger on the screen, a line is trailing behind it, like what I am doing are showing. It was normal one day, then showing this the next day.
Does anyone know how to hide these details?

Goto Settings--> Developer options-->(Uncheck) Pointer location.
Thats it.

I have a huawei raven doing the same thing but don't have the same options under accessibility. Cannot find where developer options is located

Tap on Build Number (under About Phone) 7 times. It will enable developer options.


text:
Search and cancel notification with Tasker
I'm looking for a way to search for (by text) and cancel a notification that wasn't created by Tasker with it.
I know there's an option to cancel notifications which were created by Tasker but I want to cancel some notifications of WhatsApp.

Which version of OS you are using?

Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

Do you want to cancel all notifications from WhatsApp messenger?

no only those from a specific group.


text:
What's causing my phone to freeze?
I Have a Samsung Galaxy S2.
I had it for around 2 weeks, when it first turned itself off and wouldn't turn back on again. The keyboard would glitch and stop working. and apps like Facebook, or Google Play, Internet etc would freeze then the error  'Application' Is not responding send error report etc.
I've just got it back from repairs, and the applications are still stopping responding, it hasn't crashed yet though. Any ideas what could be making it do this considering they've completely wiped the phone and screened it etc?

Was it second hand? It could be a hardware issue...

An idea would be connecting the device via USB to your PC, and run adb logcat (or using a logcat app to do this -- ADB variant is more practicable, as I will show). Now when something stops responding, immediately look at the log output and capture what's displayed. When re-deirecting adb logcat to a file, and stopping the process just after the "freeze" happens, indications should be at the end of the generated files.

I removed Facebook and it seemed to have helped my phone run better. Before I was getting flooded with invites from the same person and my phone was constantly freezing.


text:
Connect Galaxy S3 Wifi Connection to Computer
I tried googling this, but it kept giving me the USB tethering option, which I don't want.
My laptop currently cannot connect to the Wifi we have at work, because there is a problem with Cisco, Windows 8, and Killer Networks cards not working together.
However, my Galaxy S3 can connect to the Wifi at work perfectly fine.
I know that you can take your phone's mobile data connection, and use that as an internet connection over USB or Wifi.
My question is, if your phone is connected to a Wifi network ALREADY, can you USB tether it to your computer, and use that to connect your computer to the same Wifi network?
Thanks.

You don't want the USB tethering option, but you're asking if it's OK to USB tether it to your PC? Weird question.

Okay I'll clarify. I want to connect my phone to my computer via USB so that my computer can share my phone's Wifi connection.  But, I want it to use the Wifi connection that my phone is connected to, NOT my mobile data. And from what I saw on my phone, it only does USB tethering over a mobile network.

you want to connect to the WiFi network via your phone. yes?

Yes Sid that's correct.

Probably not a good solution, but have you tried turning off mobile data while connecting to the WiFi? Would that work?

I haven't, but I'll try that.  Is there anything else I can try? I heard that turning off the mobile data only works sometimes and not with all phones.

Possibly a duplicate of Can I use my Android device as Wi-Fi Dongle (ie Tethering to PC through USB, but using Wi-FI not Phone Network)?  or How can I tether my phone's Wi-Fi connection to a PC over USB?

You should be able to just tether and while your phone is connected to the wifi network that connection should be used.
If this is not the case turning off the mobile data should force it to use the wifi connection

Install Kies; it automatically installs all the required drivers. Then, tether to your computer via Wi-Fi hotspot, bluetooth, or USB.
I always use it like that with my S3.


text:
Can you install vanilla Android on any phone?
I have an Samsung Galaxy S3. TouchWiz is great, but I want to use the vanilla Android OS you see on the Nexus 4. Is this possible?

Possibly covered by Flash a smartphone with vanilla Android ROM

In theory, it should be possible to compile Android from source, with proprietary blobs for the specific device.
In practice, however, this is largely impossible, with the exception of Nexus devices and those from community dev-friendly manufacturers like Sony.
Samsung, in particular, is notorious for providing terribly (un)organized sources, and even the talented hackers of Cyanogenmod team are frustrated, and many have sold off their devices and moved to Sony and Nexus devices.
So, your only realistic option is to install a community ROM like CM10.1. Again, it is not bug-free or fully featured as stock firmware.

CM is biased towards Samsung and that the creator of CM works for Samsung so he gets all the freebies and rolls out CM more orientated towards Samsung. Yes, Samsung has caused frustration because they are not exactly forthcoming, look at the Exynos chipset which Samsung refused to disclose...and thus CM is not the brightest nor stable either, that last comment is my personal bias of dis-like for CM anyway :)

You may have your reasons to hate CM so much, but at least get your facts right. Only Steve Kondik works for Samsung, but CM is a huge project with dozens of maintainers. The reason CM has releases for Samsung quickly is because it is the no 1 OEM, which means more users who want custom ROMs, and also more devs who have the device to play with. If you follow CM devs on Google+, you'll see that many have sold their Samsung devices and are starting on Sony. Mark my words, Xperia T and newer will get great dev support soon.

I know Sony are going to come out the underdogs in this! ;) nuff said

Yes, there's two avenues:

Download a vanilla AOSP ROM that targets SGSIII provided

Your handset is rooted and running custom recovery
Flash the update.zip of that AOSP ROM that targets the same.

Build your own from scratch provided

Your desktop computer, have heaps of disk space and running Linux 64bit
Heaps of RAM, 8Gb minimum, and is a quad core or better
Download the android source from the official code repository.
Populate the device tree that matches your device, with proprietary blobs
Have an hour or two of free time as it takes a while to compile and finally spit out a system.img, boot.img and update.zip

I'm considering building a vanilla android from source for my phone, but I didn't understand this point: "Populate the device tree that matches your device, with proprietary blobs" - can you please clarify? what do you mean by blobs also?!

I have bought an Alcatel Hero 2 and I want to have vanilla android on it


text:
Is it a hard brick?
I think I've bricked my device (Huawei G330, U8225-1). I was adb pushing while I received a "push failed: no space left on device". The phone boots in recovery, I've root but the bootloader is locked.
If I try to push an update to SDCARD/dload it says "no such file or directory", if I try to adb shell it says "exec '/system/bin/sh' failed: Permission denied (13) -"
What can I do?

That's a soft brick, for the reasons below:

Handset is still powering on
adb is responding
handset recognizes usb cable plugged in (how else were you able to adb?)
handset recognizes the sdcard

Look at this question to see Izzy's answer on what is classified as a "brick".
Something went awry there and it clobbered the recovery environment... mind giving a bit more details...?
Edit
From the comments below, it transpires that the OP pushed over the shell binary file sh from the root of the phone, (either overwriting it and or/had incorrect permissions) and ended up with a "locked-out" of executing shell commands and fail.
By the way, there is no way to set the permission as the sh interpreter does not have the appropriate permission for executable bit! So executing any commands on that will fail.
The only remedy is to re-flash the recovery image directly onto the recovery partition, by going into fastboot mode on the handset, usually Power+Volume up, armed with a fastboot binary that must be entered on either the Linux's terminal or Windows's cmd, i.e. two operating system environments, choose one of your own preference:
Linux
sudo fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

Windows
fastboot-win flash recovery recovery.img

That will restore the recovery environment and then the shell interpreter should work from within adb shell session next time recovery gets booted into.

It seems like system/bin/sh hasn't the permissions to run. Due to this I can't "adb shell" anything. Any thoughts?

What were you adb pushing? BTW try free up space on SDCard and try again?

I think I did a mistake and pushed the system/bin/sh file.
Why sdcard?

Oh! Now that explains why you got the error message: exec '/system/bin/sh' failed: Permission denied (13) - Were you pushing that onto the actual recovery partition or onto SDCard? Where abouts were you exactly when you tried to execute the sh, SDCard has the executable permission blocked at filesystem level...

I was at the root of the phone, and I was pushing on the recovery partition.

You clobbered your shell binary and thus could not execute anything and end up in catch-22! So anything you type on it gets interpreted by the sh and it will fail. More than likely you will need to re-install recovery update by flashing it. And do not clobber the binary again :) And also, please ensure you have sufficient space on the SDCard before doing anything like that :)

I powered off my system by holding the power button for few seconds (ignored the power dialog on screen) and after booting into Android (4.2.1), I started receiving the error:
- exec '/system/bin/sh' failed: Permission denied (13) nRet(-1)

when trying to run adb shell. I also couldn't connect to Android over the network using SSH shell since the connection terminated just after entering the credentials.
What's more? Apps couldn't get root access (not granted), so it felt like device has been unrooted.
By the very nature of the error, I suspected a stripped permission issue and since I luckily had a custom Recovery installed I booted into it.

TWRP recovery has an option to fix permissions. I don't know whether it may rectify the issue, but since I have CWM installed I proceeded for the next step.
I mounted System and entered  adb shell.
Running ls -l /system/bin/sh resulted in:
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             4 Jun 26 12:47 sh -> mksh

It seems that sh has executable permission for everyone but it is a symlink so I proceeded for actual binary (mksh).
Running ls -l /system/bin/mksh resulted in:
-rw-rw-rw-    1 root     shell       157456 Apr 24  2013 mksh

One can see that few x are missing i.e. the file has no executable permission for anyone.
I ran chmod +x /system/bin/mksh and the final result of ls -l /system/bin/mksh was:
-rwxrwxrwx root     shell      157456 2013-04-24 13:48 mksh

I assumed mksh to be the only cause of "Permission denied" error, so I proceeded for "root access not granted" issue.
Rather than trying to find and fiddle with the issue I flashed su binaries again using CWM's inbuilt option.
I booted into Android and everything felt normal again. :)

In my case adb reboot <PARAM> was working fine.


text:
Galaxy S3 Encryption ruined my photos... recoverable?
I put outlook on my GS3 for work and to do so I had to encrypt my phone. Since Encryption, Almost all of the photos I had on my phone are now blacked out. It shows me my different folders and the amount of pictures in each, but i can not view them on my computer or my phone.
Any suggestions on something to try?


text:
Jelly Bean search - only contacts and apps?
In previous versions of Android, the Google search widget allow you to choose what you want to search.
I always configured it to search only contacts and apps. this way the Google web search results doesn't push down the phone search results, and still I can use the widget to search Google.
It seems like in Jelly Bean you can't remove the web search results and they always push the phone search results down (an sometimes even hide them under "Phone Search").
Is there a way to remove the web search results from the widget search?
If not, do you know any efficient search widget/app the can search the phone?

The Universal Search function had to be limited on newer Android versions due to one of Apple's lawsuits. Thanks to this, the search behaviour had to be modified and can't be restored without rooting the device.
For rooted devices the situation is somewhat better since you can replace GoogleQuickSearch.apk with a modified version. You can see the steps on XDA. As always with modifications requiring root, use caution. I'm not certain if the APK is device-dependant.


text:
Error when trying to use adb shell in recovery mode
I have a Chinese phone which I've been unable to install ClockworkMod on. I decided to try booting into recovery mode to manually backup/restore the system partition.
However, if I plug my phone into my PC while it's in recovery mode and issue the command
adb shell

it says:
exec '/system/bin/sh' failed: No such file or directory (2)

I can only do very limited tasks, like adb ls / to see the filesystem, but nothing else.
How can I get adb shell working in recovery mode?

In mounts and storage, mount /system.

This answer needs more detail to be useful.


text:
Problem syncing contacts: HTTP error 500 in logs
I'm trying to find if there's a way to see which HTTP requests are being done on a server. The reason is I'm trying to troubleshoot a problem with contact synchronization.
I've been having a problem synchronizing my GMail contacts on my Android phone (Galaxy SIII). The date for the last sync is well over a month ago and the two arrows that rotate to indicate activity are static and permanently present in the Sync settings screen.
However, contact data does seem to be synchronized between my phone and the GMail server: new contacts created in one appear in the other, and modifications on one side are then synchronized back to the other.
If I press Cancel sync I used to get a toast saying that there are temporary problems and to try later (I think the message was "sync is currently experiencing problems. It will be back shortly"). But now nothing happens when I press Cancel sync.
Deleting all the Google contact data in the phone and then re-syncing is not an option for two reasons:

If the problem is with a contact in the server then it won't fix the issue
I don't want to risk losing data that I added on the phone and wasn't sent to the server yet.

I turned on developer mode to get ADB logs; the following line seemed the most relevant (repeated 8 times):
D/ContactsSyncAdapter( 2964): IOException: java.io.IOException: received unhandled http error: 500

then followed by
D/SyncManager( 2257): failed sync operation , SyncResult: stats [ numIoExceptions: 8]

I think that there are 8 contacts that somehow are not able to be synchronized, but I can't really find out which ones. Finding the HTTP requests that end with a 500 error could potentially reveal which contacts might be causing trouble or more troubleshooting clues.
I'd like to avoid rooting my phone, but I do have a full Android SDK and source environment set up. I've tried using DDMS but haven't been able to make it show if/which requests are being sent to the server.

Give it a while, these sort of things happens from time to time... :)

HTTP 500 error is "Internal Server Error", so I doubt there's a lot that you can do, since the problem is on Google's end.

For server-side trouble, there's always the Google Dashboard Monitor one can check. Currently it shows no server trouble -- though it seems I cannot sync on my phone either (indicators white instead of green for 2 days now).

@onik I understand that, but if the url is something like googlecontacts.com/get?contact=Mike.Stipe then I can try and delete that contact and re-create it and see if that helps.

The problem is known and you should star the issue or improve bug reporting so it gets some attention by Google: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=42641

@hurikhan77 Thanks. I've seen it and starred it also, however that report site is for aosp bugs and not for google services.


text:
Is it possible to share WiFi network (not 3G network) via BT PAN to other devices?
I'm tring the BT PAN profile on an Android 4.1 device.
There is no 3G network on my device.
I use Wi-Fi to connect to the network.
Is it possible to share the network from my device by BT connection?
Thanks,
Cliff

I have successfully done this in the past using Wifi Tether for Root Users - it has an option to leave the WiFi on during BT tethering. But it needs a rooted device.


text:
Connecting to PPPOE ethernet over USB to ethernet adapter
I have an ASUS Infinity tablet, running Android 4.1.1.
I plugged in my USB to Ethernet adapter, and it said that the ethernet port was detected. How do I set up my ISP username and password?


text:
Where to upload video files? to have online video albums? To share them for WhatsAPP apps
I am having lot of Video files which are my personal to give to my girl friend.
My girl friend personal video files are also to send to me.
Now both together, i want to keep them as Album, Which i need to upload to Google Drive or Microsoft Sky-drive or Drop-box.
Like Photo upload/share concept, is there Video upload/share apps in Android?
Which could also help me:

While using, WhatsAPP, or Skype
i need to send my google drive videos to someone using send video?
Is there any way in Android?

Yes, you can use Google Drive, Dropbox or SkyDrive to upload your Videos. I think though that the YouTube app would be better, just remember to mark your video as "private". You can even set up an extra Google Account just for that which you can both use with the same password.

You don't need to if she just logs on to the same YouTube account. Or, you just go into the YouTube app, select the Video and touch "Share" (the icon where one dot is connected to tweo dots) and select WhatsApp.

NO NO - Did you used Picasa? In Android when you use Picasa you can have your pictures always available for sending as attachment using any other third party Apps. You method is not the answer to send video from remote location via attachment such as if i write email or chat or use skype on Android i cant browse those videos to send it over via file transfering method.

Then use Picasa. It can do Videos, too.


text:
Toogle 3G, Bluetooth, and WiFi with Android Linux or ADB commands
Since I have not found an Android command reference list (with meaning and usage of the command), I have some questions:

Can I disable/enable 3G?
Can I disable/enable bluetooth?
Can I switch from one WiFi access point to anotother WiFi access point?

If yes, how?

@MattLin I donot understand your question ? Sorry for late replay.

sorry I misunderstood your question

Related: http://android.stackexchange.com/q/21320/96277


text:
Can I use my iMac's mic and speakers for a call with my android 2.2 phone (through Bluetooth)?
I'd like to use my iMac's audio (i.e., microphone and speakers) for a call that is handled on my Samsung galaxy i5000 Android 2.2 phone. Is that possible?
I've paired my iMac (OSX 10.6) and smartphone through Bluetooth.
Then, during a call, I opened the context menu on my phone (where you can also enable/disable the speaker of the phone), but the Bluetooth icon is disabled. (although Bluetooth itself is active and working, e.g. from my iMac I can see the files on my phone).
Is there any way to get the above working?
(I wondered whether to post this under apple- or android-stackexchange, but given the Bluetooth icon being disabled, I decided to post it here)

The reason for the Bluetooth icon being disabled is that you haven't paired the phone with a device that supports the Headset profile. Bluetooth uses profiles to categorize which services a device supports, and Macs don't support acting as a headset, only connecting to a headset (see list of supported profiles).
To use this functionality, you'd need additional software which enables the Mac to act as a headset and connect to a headset gateway (which your phone most likely supports).


text:
Earphone is not working well, volume is very low in Galaxy SIII
I have a Samsung Galaxy SIII. Please help me to find the problem. I cannot hear well when I receive phone calls. This problem started recently, before that, the earphone was working perfectly. Does that mean that I need to change the earphone or it is a matter of something that I need to do in the phone's options?

Stupid question, but just to be sure: Have you tried to increase the volume, while you are on a phone call? Android has different sound level settings for different activities (music, navigation, etc).

yes of course. when you put the volume to the maximum it is still very low. It was not like that two weeks ago.

Are you using an external earphone?

I have the exact same problem with LG G4! I even changed earphones but the issue persists! The thing is that it was like that from the begining

This might seem silly, but I had this problem on my Razr Maxx HD and my solution was to use a canned air blower (with a thin straw) into the earphone jack.  It blew out ridiculous amounts of lint that must have been accumulating from the phone being in my pants pockets.

If your phone is rooted, you can try to install Meltus' Galaxy Volume Modifier. This is for the Samsung Galaxy SIII International version ONLY.
Requirements:

An International Samsung Galaxy S III with Root Access and Busybox
The ROM you're running must be a Samsung ROM (i.e. not CM)
A knowledge of ADB, Fastboot and the flashing process, just in case.


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Hide Developer Options in Android 4.2
I know how to show the developer options menu. How do I hide it again?

In the given answer, ce4 says it is not possible to hide it again without root access http://android.stackexchange.com/a/33497/25403 And with root, the solution is given

I have to admit that I updated my answer after seing this question... :-) Forgot to compile an answer here as well, but Compro01 already did that ...

Clearing the data on the "settings" app will get rid of the developer options on the Galaxy Nexus (at least on 4.1.  Not sure about 4.2), but that may only work on that device.  It doesn't do it on my Galaxy S3.
Note: The above action clears the settings of the settings app, i.e. not actually importanty data per se. You should be fine doing this.
The only other known method to get rid of them requires root and deleting /data/data/com.android.settings/shared_prefs/development.xml.
See Where are the developer options in Android 4.2?

Clearing data for Settings did it for me.

Edit: New CM10.1 added a feature to hide developer options when it is turned off.
GitCode
Once you became developer you can't hide developer options from your mobile. But you can simply turn it off (Developer option will be there in Settings).

Not true, see Compro01's answer.

He's right, if someone is not willling to delete the settings which happen to contain other stuff besides the visibility of the devel options menu as well and the phone is not rooted.

@ce4 - The app data for the "settings" app only contains the settings for the settings app, not the general settings for everything else, which are contained in the "settings storage" app, and you can't clear the data on that via the GUI.

@Compro01 Thanks! Should have read the source or examine the data in advance before posting. Edited the other answer


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Google music player restores deleted playlist
Why does my Google music player automatically create some of the playlists I deleted before?
When I delete a playlist, the playlist appears again after I turn off my Nexus 7 and turn it on again. It doesn't happen to all playlists, only specific ones.

Are you syncing Google Music with, say, iTunes? If you delete a playlist (or a track) from Google Music without also deleting it from iTunes it'll get re-sync'd.

Try to clear data and cache.
Settings-->Apps-->select Google player(click on it)-->clear data&cache
and just turn off  sync with Google Play music( this may be the cause of your issue).

I tried, did not work

When I clear data&cache the playlist created by automatically disappears for a while but after a while it appears again and the cache and data go back to their previous numbers

Answer edited..That playlist may be in your Google account. When you delete all data&cache and then it sync again. Just turn off sync option in Settings-->google-->uncheck Play music


text:
Can I stop a WhatsApp message from being delivered?
If I delete a message with a single tick, does that just get deleted from my local device ( Android) or does it no longer get delivered to the recipient?

If you wish to stop a whatapp message from being delivered to a recipient, I have found that after you have sent this (✅) and before this is delivered (✅✅) you add the person temporarily to your block list until they come on line next as you can still see there date stamp. The message then doesn't get delivered. You can then reinstate them and the message will never get delivered and stays in the status of ✅. Hope that helps.

This did not work. I tried this above thing. But, it dint work. My messages to the blocked person were delivered.

This does not work and this answer should not be marked as accepted.

Whatsapp marks messages that have been delivered from the sender to the Whatsapp servers with a single tick, and messages delivered from the Whatsapp servers to the recipient with two ticks. After the single tick has appeared, the message is already on the server and can't be removed/aborted.
If your data connection is slow/unavailable, you can cancel the message by deleting it before the tick appears.

Here's confirmation of this on the WhatsApp FAQ for check marks.

I tried deleting a single ticked message which I sent to another WhatsApp account of mine, but it got delivered even after that as soon as I logged into the other account. So it looks like deleting a message with a single tick only erases your local copy.

Unless there is a connectivity issue on yiur phone which prevents it from getting sent to the Whatsapp servers?

@asgs No - if it's got a single tick, it has already reached the WhatsApp servers.

@Neo yes, that's the point I made too.

If you had internet / mobile data when the message was sent, then there is high possibility that the other person has already received it. So, deleting it from your phone doesn't matter.
More or less, it works the same way as SMS.
Source.

My understanding is that a single tick next to a message indicates that your message has been delivered to the WhatsApp server. A double tick indicates it has been subsequently delivered to the recipients device. I was wondering whether a local deletion at that first stage also prevents the second stage from occurring.

@Rob If it's already in the WhatsApp server, then it's going to get sent to the user. It's probably just waiting for a batch job / trigger from their servers to send it.

Single tick denotes message delivered at WhatsApp server. Double tick denotes message delivered to destination, i.e., to whom it was addressed.
At single tick status, the message was delivered but not yet delivered to receiver, block the receiver.
Keep him blocked till he opens WhatsApp. Of course you don't know when he will open WhatsApp. So don't unblock immediately.
If he opens WhatsApp while blocked by you then your message will never will be sent to him even if you unblock him.
Try it and confirm.

An anonymous user edited this in attempting to reply "WELL, IT DOES NOT WORK. I TRIED IT BUT ONCE THE BLOCK IS REMOVED, THE RECEPIENT RECEIVES THE MESSAGE. THANKS."


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How to exit surelock
I am using the SureLock application on an SGS3, however I want to exit the app.
I do not have the password to unlock it and I do not want to uninstall the app.

Why do you want to exit it? Is it your S3? Why do you not know the password? You will have to uninstall.

Which will be hard without knowing the password, I guess...

@Izzy Not if ADB is enabled ;)

Yupp, in that case you are probably correct: pm uninstall whould do the trick I guess. But considering that apps is using device administrator (the permissions point that way), I'm not 100% sure either...

the only way to exit SureLock is through admin password

@Izzy Oh, you can't uninstall device admins

I finally found the soultion with the help of my techie friend
connect the device throgh USB and run the command:
adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -c android.intent.category.HOME

a window comes up. select TouchWiz Home and select Always
android home screen will come up. reset the device and there you go... surelock is gone.
Thanks to Léa for this solution.

Lukas answer did not work for me.
This did:
adb shell am kill com.gears42.surelock
adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN

First command kills surelock. Second ask you for home app.

Boot into safe mode, then delete the apps.

How do you do this?


text:
How to take screenshot in Sony Xperia Neo l without third party app?
Since volume-down + power key doesn't work, is it possible to take screenshots on Sony Xperia Neo l? If so, how?

Press and hold Power button and Volume-down button exactly at the same time and hold them there until you take a screenshot.(in ICS)
I tried it now. And its working.

Take a look at the main post ;) The poster explains that vol down+power doesn't work

He didn't get it work, may be because of timing issue...I tried it and failed so many times, but when I click at same time it works.

Good point, I thought it was a default feature on Android 4.+ but it may have been disabled or the xperia neo may be on 2.3 I dont know really

Just checked and it comes with 2.3 upgradeable to 4.0 so maybe on 2.3 still?

Nope. Neo L is coming with ICS not GingerBread
http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_neo_l-4647.php

Wrong tagging as Neo V(it comes with gingerbread)

@MattLin: There were no [tag:sony-xperia-neo-l] tags, so I had no choice.

Use monkeyrunner or run the DDMS and take a screenshot.
Read more at How to take screenshots on an Android device.

I googled it before asking here, I'm interested in tricks where no third party apps is used for that purpose. Thank you for your answer anyway.

They're not third party apps they are the tools provided by Google for situations like this, I don't understand why anyone would mark down the answer. A third party app would require root access to the device, the tools I linked are from Google

Press Power off and volume key down at the same time for 2 secs...it will take a screen shot..

How is this different than the solution provided in this answer or this other answer?

Have you confirmed that this works on the Xperia Neo?

I know this isn't the easiest way but if you are desperate you can do This...But before you do that, try hitting the power button slightly before you press down the volume-down key. If that doesn't work than maybe Sony just overlooked this feature on the update.


text:
Enabling headset button automatically during calls
I have a Samsung Tab 2, and a mono bluetooth headset.
The phone shows a bluetooth-connected icon at the top. When I dial any phone number, the headset button is not showing as connected. I have to click the headset button everytime to hear the phone audio in bluetooth headset.
Is there any way to enable headset button automatically during calls when the bluetooth headset is connected?

I don't know if they will work in this case, but maybe you could have a look at apps like Auto Bluetooth, Bluetooth Auto Connect, Automatic Bluetooth Toggle and many more (just look for somethinig like auto bluetooth in Play Store). Maybe there are some apps that can solve your problem.
As far as I know, there is no real built-in way to enable that button.


text:
How can I screenshot the Nexus 7?

Possible Duplicate:
How to take a screenshot with an Android device?

I want t take a screenshot on my Nexus 7, but none of the apps work.
How can I take a screenshot on my Nexus?

the first link in google shows (video!) how to do that...

Liam, you don't need an app for that. The linked "duplicate" a.o. points out: If you have Android 4.0+: You can press the Power button + the Volume Down button at the same time to take a screenshot. It will be saved to your gallery. Doesn't that work for you? No 3rd party app required. The Nexus 4 is, in general, an Android device -- and this is no feature "specific" to the N4.

If you are using the stock ROM, you can simultaneously hold the power and volume down buttons for 1-2 seconds. A screenshot will be captured.
If you aren't using stock, you should check the ROM's power menu (hold down the power button).


text:
USB Debugging for the Samsung Galaxy Y?
I have connected Samsung Galaxy Y phone with Android Development Tool (ADT Eclipse) It doesn't recognize my device. I'm using window XP (64 bit) operating system.
I have also made the USB Debugging mode enabled, by Going to Settings->Applications->Development. But no reaction, I have referred this link too no use.
I have also checked the Security -> Unknown Sources.
Simply, I want to use my mobile like emulator by connecting with IDE. But Its not working. If don't know its possible or not.

What is it you want to achieve?

I have specified that in my question itself. I want to use my mobile like emulator by connecting with IDE and run my apps from IDE in my mobile.

what does adb devices output?

@Astor It doesn't showing my device in the available device list.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1848567/adb-samsung-galaxy

As you're working on Windows: Have you installed the device-specific drivers? Device "not recognized" suggests there might be something missing in that area.

are you sure your phone is recognized by Windows?
You can verify this by looking in the Windows Device Manager if there is no error message or a yellow question mark on your device (you can find it by searching device manager in the search field of start menu)
If the driver is not installed you can found it on http://www.samsung.com/

Check

Security > Unknown Sources

Make sure that it is checked to allow installation from unknown sources

Yes. I have already checked it. Thq for your reply.

Many time there are softwares like Easytether, etc which don't allow adb to access your device. Make sure you don't have any such software installed which interfaces with your phone via usb.
If as stated above is not the case with you, you should try reinstalling KIES and the samsung usb drivers. That should certainly do the task for you.


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Samsung Galaxy Y asking to install CDC ACM DATA?
I have connected my Samsung Galaxy Y mobile with Windows XP (64 bit) operating system. It is asking me to install the CDC ACM Data. I have selected the 'install automatically' option, but it is saying that it can't install the software. Where can I find the software? I have searched a lot.

Here they say, installing Samsung Kies should solve the problem.
I haven't tried it yet, but it is available on Samsung's official website for their various phone models.


text:
Choosing apps to load and remove from memory when using Android
I'm not a programmer. And as far as I know, Android uses as much RAM as possible, loading as many apps as possible, so that launching / opening (or returning to them) is smoother.
My question is:
Is there any way to choose which applications I ALWAYS want to keep in memory, and which ones I NEVER want to have there?
For example:
WhatsApp is a very common app. I would always want it to be there. Google Maps is always open and occupying space. I barely use it, and I don't mind to waiting 5-10secs until it opens. It would be better to use that RAM for other apps, such as my browser.
Thanks in advance.

What android version are you referring to?

I don't recommend trying to come up with a way to outsmart Android's system resource handling. The Android OS handles the closing of specific apps/services very well and to try to manually control this will lead to unexpected results. I highly do not recommend you looking into task killers, etc. The OS will simply restart any service you kill which will waste resources (battery, processing time, etc.).

Related: How can I free up RAM automatically? - 0 ram free on ICS - Are there guidelines on how much free RAM a phone should have

You can never "choose" per-se an app and dictate that the app will have that guaranteed amount of memory.
Sure, Google Maps consume space, but that's for the actual application, does not mean its hogging up memory, Android is pretty smart when it comes to memory management.
When you long press the home key, it shows the recent apps list, that does not mean they are all loaded at the same time. Android keeps track of which activities was shown and if necessary load them again, and once the pressure of RAM space hits a certain threshold, Android will boot them out to make room for other apps.
You cannot override Android's dictation of how and what application should be in RAM, just by a user's presumption that "this certain app should be there in memory and has guaranteed X amount of RAM, because I want it to"
Android is not Windows, where their Task Manager is available at all times via Ctrl+Alt+Del and zap away processes to "free up memory".. That mantra should be firmly repeated ad-nauseum! :)
As Ryan Conrad's statement in the comment, from the discussion arising out of the likes of RAM Boosters, Task Killers et al, this statement sums up exactly why the apps mentioned can have a negative effect on the battery, not to mention introducing instabilities into the system - It's CPU cycles that you should be more worried about than memory. WORD CPU cycles drains the battery regardless and as the commentator says Free Memory is wasted Memory. Let the OS handle it. It is better at doing it. It knows what memory can be freed safely without causing additional strain and drain on the device
Simples really :)

Yes, but you can say for Android to kill unnecessary applications and services to have (for example) browser working faster.

Bzzzt!!!! Wrong! You will end up having to restart services which slows down and chewing up more battery! Read this thus negating battery life as a result!

Free Memory is wasted Memory. Let the OS handle it. It is better at doing it. It knows what memory can be freed safely without causing additional strain and drain on the device. having 100% (or close to) memory in use is not a bad thing. It's CPU cycles that you should be more worried about than memory.

@RyanConrad exact! I'll quote you on this important last statement!!!! +1 from me! :)

Sorry, I answered in the "Smart RAM Booster" comment. I'm not used to this forum :)

If your device is Android 4.0+ and rooted, try "Greenify" which I developed.
You can safely hibernate any app you do not want it to run stealthily (thus eat your memory, battery and slow down your device) when you are not actively using it, while still keep it fully functional when you explictly run it, either from launcher or by sharing anything with it.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oasisfeng.greenify

You can try Smart RAM Booster:

Most of Android devices bundle with limited memory. Android task
manager will selectively kill low priority tasks in order to reserve
memory to higher priority task. That’s not always run at an
appropriate time, causing low responsive apps, lagging, especially
when you launch a new app after heavily browsing web pages. It causes
a worse experience.
How RAM Booster works
RAM Booster is designed to overcome these issues
by selectively kill less important apps that are running in the
background but consumes considerable device’s memory. RAM Booster
comes with auto-boost in 4 levels: aggressive, strong, medium, gentle.

That app looks like a equivalent of Windows Task Manager, zap away processes, and this could interfere with Android's own Memory Manager and increase de-stability overall. Cannot help wonder, but the impression I get that this app requires root...

@t0mm13b Root is not needed...

I find these apps like battery savers and memory managers tend to take up additional resources and not really improve overall performance

That's one of the typical "shoot-and-kill" games, as the last quoted paragraph clearly shows: it works by by selectively kill less important apps, which is not the job of a task-killer but of the OOM-killer. Besides, most of those "less important apps" will immediately restart either -- so all you gain from it is more battery drain. Very smart. Moreover, as spences10 just wrote, they use up ressources themselves...

@spences10 I also don't use them - it's just application which OP looking for.

Thanks everyone for your answers. However, I haven't found yet what I was looking for.
Task-killers APPs, as some people have explained here, just "force" the system to re-open the previous APPs again, draining battery.
The explanation of how good Android manages RAM doesn't helpe neither. As much as it is well designed, there is obvious a lack of control right there. Just for installing an APP it doesn't mean I want it to be in my RAM memory.
As I said, Gmaps is always there, and I barely use it (once a month, aprox).
Would it be difficult to develop an APP for these purposes?

If you are a rooted user just convert your app into system app by using rom tool box pro or any other app then it will not close after you swipe away the app from recent app.and runs in background.If you don't want maps or other pre installed apps to run uninstall them and reinstall from playstore and greenifying them will make your battery last long.

Give us the link of the app and some detailed steps for better understanding.


text:
Have to clear google services framework on android ice cream sandwich
I recently had issue to sync with google as the following are affected:

gmail app says no internet connection
play store says no internet connection
tablet is set to EPOCH (Jan 01, 1970, 00:00)
I can surf the internet but I get tons of certificate warning whatever the website I am surfing.

I am using an android tablet (android 4.0 ice cream sandwich), wifi only. Looking around I found that I should clear data from google services framework and restart my tablet (see this post for example).
It works great, but the error keep coming back and I'm looking for a permanent fix. Should I wipe the tablet?
Thanks in advance for your help!
---- After test update -----
Thanks all for your comments and help (and sorry for my long silence). Here is the steps I've done:

Delete and re-install accounts, Results: Error connecting server (tried with 2 different account)
Done Factory Reset > No more issue to add account
Install Gmail app (it took 3 or 4 trials where I reboot tablet before success). There every was fine.
Restart tablet for testing: same issue as before :(

I guess either I never switch off my tablet or I return it

Did you try to also clear the app's cache? Btw: A nice and useful troubleshooting rule graph can be found at Lifehacker :)

yes I did. The issue also affect the time on the tablet as it is set to EPOCH every time the bug is here (edited the question). Thanks for the chart basically it say I'm good for "reset factory data"

I was afraid so, yes. However, I don't know what else you could try. Just a hint: Before you're going to reset, make a good backup. As you're on ICS, you can backup everything even without root (check my profile page when in doubt, my highest-ranking question deals with that topic). Also don't forget to report back with the results of your reset, if you're doing it.

Before doing a Factory reset, try removing and adding your Google account: maybe this solve your problem.

@magdmartin Why is your tablet set to Epoch time? Have you tried setting the clock on it to the right time? A lot of servers and systems have problems communicating with/trusting clients with clocks "skewed" by a few hours, if yours is off by decades that is likely to be causing you problems.

edit question with last test.


text:
Android tablet won't reboot after rebooting using volume and power buttons
I am using a 7" Smartfren tablet called S7.
I was following this tutorial. When I got the last part about the bootloader, I turned my device off. I tried to reboot using the volume buttons and power button, but it won't open up. Also, it cannot be seen by using the command adb devices. Thus, I can't use any adb command to access it. What am I doing wrong?
It is recognized by my laptop as Android Bootloader Interface. So, it means that it can still be detected by my laptop, but not when using adb devices in cmd.
Edit #1: I tried the fastboot devices command, and it just returned an empty line. I guess it means that nothing happened.
Edit #2:
I'll tell you its current status. It can't be normally rebooted, but when you plug it in, it shows that it is charging. Then if I put it back on its case, complete with box and all it heats up meaning it is still functioning and is turned on.

Use use the fastboot command in boot loader mode. Try fastboot devices.

Btw: Best place to ask this question is in the XDA thread you've got the tutorial from: at least the one who wrote it (and most likely a dozen others) should be familiar with the procedure.

Why are you double-posting...this is the same question but worded differently as if expecting a quick response turn-around time?

This question has more detail, so the other question should be closed as a duplicate.

I tried asking it over at the forum but until now nobody has answered my pleas for help.

I was able to solve this problem by draining the tabs battery completely. After a day I was able to turn it on using the power button today while charging.


text:
Jabiru disconnects/reconnects every 10-15 minutes when inactive
I'm not an Android user, but I have an Android user as a contact in my XMPP roster (instant messaging). I noticed that his presence switches from "Away" to "Offline" rotatory when his smartphone is not in use (but constantly connected to his private WLAN).
See for example the following status changes for his account from tonight (while he was sleeping, so no activity with the phone):

[00:05:13] Status: Offline
[00:06:02] Status: Away: AutoStatus (idle)
[00:18:14] Status: Offline
[00:21:17] Status: Away: AutoStatus (idle)
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He uses the XMPP client Jabiru. He can't explain why this is happening; he doesn't find any settings that could be responsible for this.
I googled if it is a known bug and found this statement (in German) in a forum thread, which could be translated to:

Nice client, but it will probably not keep you connected when inactive, "thanks" to Androids memory management

Is this true? Could it be a problem with Android itself and not this particular XMPP app? How can this be fixed? The XMPP status should stay at "Away" (and not disconnect&reconnect again and again) when the smartphone is inactive.

I guess that's a question of configuration. As you refer to German, look out for "WLAN Standby Richtlinie". In Settings -> WiFi, press "menu" to get to the advanced settings. Check how WiFi is configured to work when the screen is switched of. Probably it's set to "go to sleep". // Please add a comment here after you checked -- so if this was helpful, I might convert it to a (more detailed) answer for you and other affected users :)

About the statement
The quoted statement is just plain wrong. Android (or it's memory management component) does not prevent any app from keeping a stable connection to any kind of network service (e.g. XMPP).
You only have to deal with fact that Android will kill your process if it's under memory pressure. But the same manager that did kill your service (ActivityManager) will also restart your service once the low memory situation is resolved. Your app simply has to reconnect then.
As this will only happen when no Activity from the App is in foreground, the user usually doesn't notice the reconnection, or he/she simply doesn't care, since the App is in background anyways.
Your symptoms
Obviously Jabiru does reconnect. And I also think that jabiru doesn't disconnect intentionally. It's more likely that the data connection went down. The most probable reason for this is that the WiFi went to sleep. But then the GSM connection should take over and we would only see **one* disconnect after around 15 minutes.
I think you should look in the Android log to find out what happens around the time Jabiru disconnects. The WiFi sleep policy is one reason to look at, but then I wonder why Jabiru is able to reconnect at all, since the WiFi should be disabled until the device is woken up again.


text:
Is it possible to remove the Android smileys that replace text strings like ":)"?
A friend of mine was wondering if it's possible to remove or replace these smileys entirely, or if they are a native function of the Android operating system that would require tweaks in a custom ROM to get rid of. Question applies to both tagged devices (S3 and Galaxy Nexus).
These are the smileys we are talking about, for reference:

This is a feature of the particular app that you are using. If you are referring to the SMS Messaging app, there are various SMS apps replacements available on Google Play, you can customize the smiley on some SMS replacement apps or disable them entirely.


text:
Connecting Nexus 7 to external hard disk?
How can I connect a Nexus 7 (JB 4.2 rooted) to an external hard disk? I know I have to use a USB OTG cable, but what's the exact procedure to achieve this after connecting via OTG?

Using it? Where's your problem? Have you tried already and got stuck -- and if so, where did you get stuck? A few more details would be helpful to know what you're pointing at.

You need to:

Root your Nexus 7
Install StickMount
Use a file explorer to browse the files on your hard disk

Note: If the device is an actual spinning-platters hard drive, you may bang your head into the limit of how much current the Nexus 7 will supply.  In that case, you'll need a secondary source of power, like a double-headed USB cable and a charger.

If your Nexus 7 isn't rooted, Install Nexus Media Importer app and connect your Hard Disk using USB OTG cable. The app will take care after that.
The question does say that the device is rooted, but this answer can help visitors having unrooted Nexus 7.


text:
How do you undo a Bootloaded Android Device?

Possible Duplicate:
Android tablet won’t reboot after rebooting using volume and power buttons

I 'think' I have bootloaded my device after pressing the Power+Volume buttons simultaneously to reboot it.
Now, it isn't detected by my cmd adb devices and fastboot devices, this is even though I loaded the 'Android Bootloader Interface' as its driver.
So how do I undo this state?

Sounds like you entered fastboot mode, Power+Volume buttons enter fastboot mode, try pulling the battery, and wait for a few seconds, then pop in the battery and press power only.

Hey! You posted this question earlier...?

Yes I did! But I couldn't access that account now! It was unregistered and this one is the one I registered for!

Are you sure it is fastboot mode? I'll tell you its current status. It can't be normally rebooted, but when you plug it in, it shows that it is charging. Then if I put it back on its case, complete with box and all it heats up meaning it is still functioning and is turned on.

We seem to have circular duplications :/


text:
Why is root access required for a custom ROM?
I'd like to be clear, and as my question indicates, I'm very ignorant of mobile devices in general so my apologies if this is common knowledge.
Say I want to install a custom ROM onto a device, then it would appear I need root access. I'm able to find out from every web page on how I can root a device, but I'm unable to find how why I need to root a device. I understand that rooting a device simply gives me root access on the device, but why is this needed? If I connect the phone to a PC then doesn't that give me access to the entire file system of the device? If so, then why can't I just overwrite the relevant parts of the FS with whatever ROM I want?
Also, why would rooting and using a custom ROM cause a device to be bricked? Couldn't I just overwrite the ROM that was causing the issue with the original one (that I'd thought on to back up! ;)).

If I connect the phone to a PC then doesn't that give me access to the entire file system of the device? - By default, no, it doesn't. It gives you access to a very specific portion of the filesystem (the "external" storage).

Here and Here

@t0mm13b None of those questions answer the WHY part. Guess I'll go ahead and put something here.

Short answer:
For security and warranty reasons.
Detailed answer:
This is mostly a precaution taken by most (not all!) device manufacturers to save them from too many service requests from "playing kiddies" (and the sort of people who want to try everything, even if they are not understanding anything). So those manufacturers took special actions to avoid "custom ROMs" (or, more precisely, any ROMs not provided by themselves) to be flashed.
As t0mm13b already pointed out in his comments above, by default you do not get physical access to your devices file system simply by connecting it via USB. Depending on device, Android version, and some more criteria, you get only to see parts. This might be the entire SD card (physical, in UMS mode), or even only "logical" access to parts of it via MTP. Some more privileged access can be gained via ADB when enabling USB Debug -- but with a stock ROM, in none of these cases you gain full access.
Now how are updates accomplished then? One very common practice is the use of a special ZIP file (update.zip). This is placed on the SD card, which is inserted into the device, and the device is booted into a special mode (recovery), where the update.zip can be applied from. BUT: the device checks the integrity of that update.zip -- it must be signed with the manufacturers key. For obvious reasons, that key is not freely available -- so no custom ROM can be installed this way on such a stock system.
All these things can be circumvented only with super-user access to the device -- which means: you must root it.
So that's for the WHY part -- while not handling the HOW part of rooting. Exactly as you asked for :)

Update for even more details
As Liam pointed out in his comment that using fastboot would be a method to flash Custom ROMs without the pre-condition of having the device rooted, I did a little more research to find out about this. I will continue looking into this, but still already wanted to add my first results here.
Up to a certain point, Liam is right with this: It seems not only valid to Samsung devices (as I assumed first), but some other devices (not all) also support this method, without root being involved (aside from the fact that most Custom ROMs will ship rooted, of course -- so you will have root available after installing them). However, there are devices which seem to require root even for fastboot flash (see e.g. TheUnlockr concerning the Iconia A100, quote: You must have rooted your device before doing this procedure. -- and yes, they use fastboot flash recovery recovery.img afterwards).
However, even if fastboot works for your unrooted device, there is one crucial point to consider:

To Flash a ROM for your Android device with fastboot you must have an unlocked bootloader or an engineering bootloader

(Flashing Guide - Android - XDA-Developers)
Which means: If your bootloader is locked, you need to unlock it first, which will wipe (factory-reset) your device. So all data will be gone for good this way -- while with root you could have done a complete backup (Nandroid, Titanium Backup) before this step. However, starting with Android 4.0, this is no longer a real problem -- as you can do a full backup via ADB (see: Full Backup of non-rooted devices)

Summary:
There are devices requiring to be rooted before you can flash a Custom ROM. If your device falls into this category, the reasons for Why is root access required to flash a Custom ROM are those mentioned above.
However: There are also devices which can be flashed using fastboot without being rooted before. If your device falls into that category, the question Why is root access required to flash a Custom ROM becomes invalid (the answer not, as ex falso quodlibet sequitur ("from false can follow anything") you can draw any conclusion from a wrong premise :)
That is: IF rooting is required, the above is WHY.

You don't actually need root to install a custom ROM on most devices ;)

@LiamW As my question states - I'm very ignorant with mobile OSes, and Izzy has 13.3k reputation which indicates he knows a thing of two more about this than myself; as such, I assume his answer is fully correct as I don't know anything to the contrary; also his answer was also the highest voted (again indicating it's technically correct). Nevertheless if you believe his answer to be incorrect, feel free to update your answer and if the votes swing I'll change the accepted answer.

@LiamW You mean "on most Samsung devices". I never saw a device you could flash a custom ROM without rooting, sorry, and I saw some devices. Well, I kept away from plastic bombers... XD So technically, your last comment is incorrect :D

Its a chicken and egg... you need root to be able to flash a custom ROM and in order to flash a custom ROM, you generally need an unlocked boot-loader with a rooted recovery environment... and a rooted recovery environment such as CWM/TWRP....catch-22!

@t0mm13b just mentioned the "custom recovery". This is what works around the "signature" problem -- so one can flas an update.zip even when it's not signed with the manufacturers key -- so this is one more detail in the queue. I just don't see the "chicken-and-egg": root -> unlock -> CWM -> Custom ROM. No loop detected.

@LiamW It's hardly prejudice and you're quite right - high reputation doesn't always mean a valid answer, however considering I asked a question which I had no way of testing the answer I also rely on the community and their votes to find an acceptable answer. As I said, feel free to expand your answer which disproves the answer provided by Izzy and assuming the community agree, I'll happily make yours the accepted answer. :)

@R4D4 An accepted answer should be the one that helps you the most.  If you're not in a position to fully evaluate the answer then it's perfectly OK to not accept one.  Accepting the highest answer just because it's the highest, or the one from someone with high rep, is definitely frowned upon.  At the end of the day though it is your decision, no one should tell you differently.

Exactly -- peace again :) We decided, until proven otherwise, we both are correct -- depending on the circumstances (such as the hardware/manufacturer in question). I will dig into the fastboot topic again, and update my question later. May take a couple of days, as I'm quite busy at the moment (see chat for reasons ;)

@MatthewRead Can't agree more with your statement, however measuring "help" is difficult when I'm asking for an explanation. I don't generally accept answers based on rep or number of votes, but in this case I would. I have nothing to test the answers are correct, nor will I be in a position to fully understand the answers for quite a long time. Saying that, when the time comes when I can appreciate both answers, then I'd happily revise the accepted answer.

@Izzy Just to be clear, when you say I may be given access to the entire SD card through UMS mode, I'm assuming you mean the external SD card that may or may not be present rather than the internal memory holding the file system?

Correct -- I was just referring to the real card (which can be physically removed), not the internal one. And of course that's only true if the device supports UMS (which was usually the case before Android 4.0 if the device supported such a card).

You generally don't need to root the phone to install the custom ROM, you have to root the phone to install a mechanism to install the custom ROM (such as a custom recovery image).
Some phones have unlockable bootloaders - you can flash boot and system.img files via the bootloader without the need to root.
You can also flash a custom recovery image using fastboot without being rooted.
You would need to install a custom recovery as the stock recovery checks that the update zip is signed - and most custom ROM zips are not signed.
You might need to root to install a custom recovery image if your device doesn't support fastboot, but generally you don't need to - it just comes with the image you install.
Samsung devices have download mode - no need to be rooted to use that, you just need ODIN.

If I connect the phone to a PC then doesn't that give me access to the
  entire file system of the device? If so, then why can't I just
  overwrite the relevant parts of the FS with whatever ROM I want?

No, it doesn't. It gives you read only access, so you can't overwrite files in the /system directory. Root can be used to make /system read-writeable.

"You generally don't need to root the phone to install the custom ROM, you have to root the phone to install a mechanism to install the custom ROM (such as a custom recovery image)." surely boils down to you do need root to go from having stock off-the-shelf OS to a custom ROM?

@GAThrawn Nope. You can flash a custom recovery using fastboot. You don't need to root to access fastboot (and sometimes you need to use fastboot to access root)

Many non-Samsung devices do not have unlockable bootloaders (especially older ones), though, so you can't flash a custom recovery without first exploiting the bootloader somehow or installing the recovery some other way (ROM Manager/Goo Manager). Often this does involve rooting, although that might not always be the case. I think that's what @GAThrawn and others are trying to get at. More manufacturers have started to move to offering a bootloader unlocking tool, but many still have not. Motorola devices, for example, are notoriously hard to get custom ROMs on compared to others.


text:
HDMI output mirroring in Portrait mode
I have an app that works fine in both Landscape and Portrait mode, but it demos best in Portrait mode. I'd like to show this app on a phone with HDMI output (either from MHL, Slimport, or micro-hdmi) and screen mirroring to an external display.
Presently, I have a Samsung Galaxy Nexus. However, as has been pointed out by many, this phone forces the orientation to Landscape when an HDMI display is attached through the MHL adapter (see Set up portrait video output from Galaxy Nexus, HDMI/MHL possible in portrait mode?, HDMI output, Portrait mode?)
Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can do HDMI Output with mirroring and keep my phone in portrait mode?

Purchase suggestions are off topic sorry!

Sorry, I'll rephrase

Ok, did my best.

This question, in its current form, is absolutely appropriate here.

Thanks. I grumbled at first, but this is probably a better question in its current form. I would love a software/configuration fix rather than to purchase a new phone fix. I'm just skeptical about a soft solution so I crafted the first post more about recommendations rather than solutions. But your guidelines are correct. I need a solution, not necessarily a new phone.

Were you ever able to solve this?

I never found a solution for my phone (Galaxy Nexus), however I found other phones behaved differently. A Galaxy S3 worked fine in portrait mode on HDMI output. I ended up primarily demoing using droid@screen - http://droid-at-screen.ribomation.com/ - and if I have access to a Galaxy S3 or S4 I use the Samsung specific version of Teamviewer - QuickSupport - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teamviewer.quicksupport.market.samsung


text:
How to keep files downloaded via Dropbox after uninstalling app
I want to know whether there is any app on the Google Play Store which

stores all dropbox files to memory card whenever there is net
available
Leaves the files in my memory card even after I uninstall the app

App recommendations are off topic here sorry!

its ok.I got it @LiamW

@Sampath: What Liam is trying to say is, rather than asking us to help you find your already-identified solution (an app), you should ask about the problem you're trying to solve. Keeping the files downloaded via Dropbox after removing the app seems like a decent question to me. The solution may very well be an app, but not necessarily. Please review the [FAQ].

See also: http://meta.android.stackexchange.com/questions/1289/how-do-i-ask-a-question-that-may-require-recommending-a-product

Further, the first part of your question would seem to be covered here: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/1120/complete-dropbox-implementation-for-android

You can do this by
clicking on the arrow on the extreme right of the items you want to save
cick export and save it to a selected place on your sdcard

For the 2nd point, you can copy or move the downloaded Dropbox files in another folder before uninstalling the application. Take your favorite file manager and do it.


text:
Text Messaging: Group Text Message
I  have a DroidX running Android 2.3.4.  When somebody sends me a text message that goes to other devices too, is there anyway I can tell?  Usually the only way I find out is when somebody else does a "reply all" (probably using a newer version of Android), and I get some random message from a number I may or may not recognize.
Also, what about when I reply to the message?  Does it only go to the person who sent it to me, or does it somehow auto-reply-all behind the scenes?

possible duplicate of How can I deal with mass texts from an Apple phone when using an Android phone?

@t0mm13b It does sound similar.  However, this is not just an Apple to Android thing.  This also happens Android to Android.

They are very different questions.

I am on 2.3.5
In the basic "messages" app you can go to the message, clicknhold, view message details. There it shows all recipients.
If i just reply it only goes back to the sender. Now, others that I know have iphones replied and it went to everyone...
There is a "reply all" option after you click and hold.

Wow, I had no idea you could press and hold and see who the message was sent to.  Interesting though that there isn't an icon or something to even indicate when that message was sent to multiple recipients...

In 4.2.1 (maybe in 4.2.0) there was an option added to the MMS application to support multiple recipients.
While you may have been able to see them all the way that William stated, i've never seen that option.
In 4.2.1 you click on the menu and select "Group Participants". This shows everyone that is included in the conversation. When you reply to a group now, it sends the messages to all participants, not just the person that sent you the message.
I know this doesn't relate directly to your question as you are not asking about 4.2, but I do not know of a way that this can be done in anything pre-4.2. This feature was discussed a bit because it was the first time android supported this feature.
While you could always "start" a group conversation in any version of android, you could not "participate" in a group conversation with anyone other than the original sender.

You could use the stock messaging service by adding numbers seperated by a comma into the recipient box.
But in my opinion there's a better option. You can download GroupMe which let's you message multiple people at a time. You can choose whether to use SMS or your data connection to send the message.


text:
Missing edit icon on Galaxy S launcher
I am trying to change the 4 icons that are along the bottom of the screen on my Samsung Galaxy S. All the answers I have looked at say 'press menu and then select edit', but I don't have an edit button. When I press Menu I see:

All programs
Add to home screen
Wallpaper
Search
Notifications
Settings

Where is the edit button?

Edit what? What app(s) are you talking about?

If you're talking about launcher... some launchers have Edit in there to add more screens, remove screens... but then again the context of question is not clear so please clarify!

Sorry, I am trying to change the 4 icons that are along the bottom of the screen, all the answers I have looked at say 'press menu and then select edit' I don't have edit only the ones I have mentioned. Don't know where it is. Thanks

@user26978 it's quite a while since I owned a Galaxy S, but I seem to remember that you could just long-press on the icons on the bottom row, and then drag them in or out. Does that work?

When you go to Menu, press view type and select customizable grid. Now you can see an edit button as mentioned by several posts

There is no such option when you press menu from the home screen. You have to go to 'Applications' first, and then press menu! Also note that this onlyt works in the Samsung stock TouchWiz launcher.

Thanks for all your help. It looks like I will have to make do with the icons that are there. Doesn't look like they can be changed. Thanks again.

Long press the icons and you will be able to move or remove them.


text:
How to free up more storage (upgrading to 4.2 made me lose 6GB)?
So this morning, I bought a new game and it required a large file download. I went to download it and a message told me that I had 0mb of space remaining.  This seemed odd to me because last time I checked I had plenty of space.
I looked at my storage and saw a little over 6GB in Apps and a little over 6GB in Misc.  I uninstalled 2 games which both had large files (around 2GB each).  After uninstalling, my App storage updated to what is shown in the image (1.82GB). The Misc storage did not change at all after uninstalling the apps.
I understand that Android now has a /sdcard and a /sdcard/0 for the multi-user feature. There are many duplicate directories in these two locations. For example, there exists both /sdcard/Downloads and /sdcard/0/Downloads. The /sdcard/0/downloads has all the downloads from before I updated to 4.2, and /sdcard/downloads has all the downloads since I updated to 4.2. This makes me think that /sdcard/0 is like a backup, but from the research I've done, it seems like the multi-user support effects more than just this sdcard stuff that I'm seeing (something about emulated storage). Right now, I am trying to free up as much storage as I can, but I get so confused when going into the file system now.
Questions:

What is this Misc stuff? More specifically, what is the obb and 0 that is taking up all my storage?
What can I delete to simplify this mess and free up storage?

That is the feature of JB's multi-user accounts...

@t0mm13b Why would you make the images smaller? I can't see them.

@StephenWatkins reason to minimize vertical scrolling and to make it easier, have amended to include linky to a bigger image.. :)

No, it will not duplicate your files. However, there are some files that will not be deleted, like system files and some other software data.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by the second half of your answer about "system files and other software data"? It's not very clear what you mean there, and seems to imply (currently) that it does cause some data to be duplicated.

this doesn't really answer my question(s). If you understand what is going on in the situation I explained above, please explain it.


text:
MTP Driver fails to install for CM 10.1 on Samsung Galaxy Note II
The nightly builds of CyanogenMod 10.1 for the Samsung Galaxy Note II was just released.
I have been using CM on my devices since the G1 (ADP1) days so I decided to give it a try.
I have only had 2 issues so far. (Bluetooth is wonky but I don't use it very often)

Lack of support for ExFAT. This was easily worked around by converting my SDCard to FAT32. While I wish there was support for ExFAT, I doubt there ever will be since it is a propitary format that was licensed to Samsung.
Unable to successfully install the MTP drivers (Windows 7). I have tried rebooting, uninstalling the "existing" drivers and rebooting. Nothing seems to allow the driver to successfully install.

It goes through the entire process of installing the driver. It even downloads it from Microsoft Update after I uninstall the existing driver. But it will not successfully install.

It seems that all that I needed to do was reboot my PC. Once I rebooted my PC had no problems installing the MTP driver for the device.

One of my PCs was having this same problem while my other laptop was without any problem, I have notice that the problem would disappear after I re-install the Samsung mobile driver back. I am not sure why this was a problem. I think that the problem is with windows, since another PC could detect it without any issues.


text:
Can I use usb OTG for serial connection between nexus 7 and Arduino?
I got myself an OTG cable for Nexus 7, which works just fine. Now, I am wondering if I can connect the Nexus 7 with my Arduino for serial communication between the two.

Yes, according to this blog post. It involves Android programming, something I'm not very familiar with.

There are reports that what you want to do is achievable. (src)
I think you alteady know that peripheral devices can also be hosted on your USB port. (more info)
There are several apps specifically made for your arduino in the Play Market


text:
Mobile data connection is lost "by its self", need to re-enable it manually everytime I unlock the phone
This happens constantly:

Go to Data Usage->"Mobile Data" to "On".
Lock phone for about 30 min.
Unlock phone and try to use an application that requires data connection.
The application says no connection (not application specific, happens with Waze, Play Store, Evernote, Remember The Milk...).
Go to Data Usage->"Mobile Data" is "Off", turn to "On".
...[cycle repeats]

My setup:

Galaxy S2
Resurrection Remix 3.8 ROM
JuiceDefender Ultimate

If I check JuiceDefender before step 5 above, it says "Data Off (User)", i.e. JuiceDefender thinks that I switched Mobile Data off. So it's not JuiceDefender's fault.
Something else is switching Mobile Data off (and I can't find any setting to leave it on). What could it be and how do I stop it?

Might be you've got another app installed that deals with it? I'm no prophet, so I don't know about your installed apps ;) But what I'd try first is disabling JuiceDefender and check if the problem goes away. If not, go through all your apps looking for potential candidates (especially automating apps like Tasker or Llama, Phone Profiles and what else is available). Check their settings one-by-one, disable them one-by-one (so you can be sure which one caused it), enable them again if they were not the cause.

Except JuiceDefender, I don't have any other automation apps. Tried to disabled JD from yesterday and it didn't help.

Android version 4.x? Have you checked your settings for mobile data? ICS introduced a manager here which can turn data off when your configured limit is exceeded.

Checked it and the CheckBox is not checked, i.e. I don't have a limit set.


text:
Disable screen lock pattern
I just downloaded JellyBean on my HTC One X.
I wanted to check APNs, but accidently went to VPN. Then, I had to set the screen lock pattern to access it. Now, I have an extra step when I want to use the phone. Is there any way to disable the screen lock pattern?

Have you checked in Settings -> Security -> Screenlock?

Yes screen lock only shows the pattern to draw on, the only option is to a time frame to keep phone unlocked up to 15 mins. I may have to do a factory reset.

First, remove the VPN entry. Settings will not let you remove the pattern unlocker until you do so.
Then choose a "Slide" option from Settings -> Security -> Screen Lock
I had the same problem and this works

You can disable screen locks by going to Settings -> Security -> Screen Lock
On a side note, it's a good practice to use a screen lock, preferably a pattern, a PIN or a password.

My mistake for the previous answer .
As you have a VPN defined you are probably facing difficulty accessing the network as you need to unlock the screen every time you access so I suggest you download this app.
In this app it will remove the requirement for any pattern lock to access the network thereby relieving you of the problem which you face .
Else if you still want to disable the lock then go through with this

You can't remove the pattern lock if you have a VPN defined.