text:
Why does the Google Authenticator app have "obsolete" in its title on Play Store?
Why does the Google Authenticator app have "obsolete" in its title on Play Store?
Does it work? Can I still use it for two-factor authentication? Is there a preferred method?

Looks like Google has released a new version of Authenticator (as of March 21, 2012) under a new package name: com.google.android.apps.authenticator2.
Old version:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.authenticator
New version:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.authenticator2
Different package names means that you can have them both installed simultaneously, but my guess is that Google will eventually remove the old version from the Play Store.
Installing Authenticator 2 without uninstalling Authenticator allows Authenticator 2 to import your currently configured sites.
I've read a few posts from people claiming that Google lost their signing key, and this why they have to release a new app under a new package name. I want to emphasize that there is no evidence to support this claim. While it is true that signing keys cannot be changed with app updates and therefore require a completely new app/package name, a more plausible explanation could be that Google wants to integrate Authenticator more tightly (e.g., shared UIDs, signature permissions) with other apps (see below).
Additional info for those interested:
The signing key used on the old version of Google Authenticator (SHA1 fingerprint: 24:BB:24:C0:5E:47:E0:AE:FA:68:A5:8A:76:61:79:D9:B6:13:A6:00) is also used to sign: Scoreboard, Goggles, Finance, Google Voice, Shopper, Transalte, Chrometophone, Earth, Reader, and a few others.
The signing key used on the new version of Google Authenticator (SHA1 fingerprint: 38:91:8A:45:3D:07:19:93:54:F8:B1:9A:F0:5E:C6:56:2C:ED:57:88) is used to sign: Google Maps, Google Play Store, Gmail, Google+, Google Chrome and Google Music.
Update: Google has put up a blog post talking about the new up as well as the upgrade procedure.

After importing the data Authenticator offers a link to uninstall the older version

+1 for info on importing currently configured sites, which the app doesn't explain in its own site.

I thought you couldn't import data from other apps unless they used the same key.

The most common way of sharing/importing data between apps is sharing a UID, which requires the same signing key on both apps. What Google did to get around this was they wrote an "export service" in the old authenticator app that can be called by any app on the phone. The service checks that the calling app has the correct signing key and package name, and then sends it the list of accounts. If the key or package name aren't what the old authenticator expects, the export doesn't complete.


text:
Can I convert a system app to a user app, uninstall it, or move it to my SD card?
Is it possible to convert a system app to a user app and then uninstall it or move it to SD?
I'm thinking about not critical apps, such as Astro filemanager (I use Root Explorer), Google maps, Google Talk and so on.

The easiest way to do this is probably to use Titanium Backup. If you long press on a system app in the list it will give you the option to "Convert to user app". Conversely, you can long press on a user app and "Convert to system app" as well. Note, though, that some system apps will not function well as user apps because their permissions may be restricted. Most of the apps you seem to be considering specifically will probably not have issues, I would imagine, though Google Talk actually might since it's somewhat tied into the Market (not sure).
Further, Titanium will allow you to directly uninstall a system app if you want to, without having to first convert it to a user app. All of the above requires that you have rooted your phone.

I would expect Talk to have problems, but I can confirm that Maps works fine as a user app.

As a rule of thumb, anything distributed through the Play Store should work just fine as a user app.  Do system apps have greater permissions than other apps though?  I didn't think that they did.

@afrazier: I know Apex Launcher has instructions for installing as a system app because certain features don't work when it's running as a user app. The author cites limitations in what Android will let the app do as a user app (so I don't know if it's "permissions" per se, but something in the way the framework handles it all is different).

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Asus Transformer : no more sound after update to Ice Cream Sandwich
I updated my Asus Transformer TF101 to Android 4.0.3 last weekend and I have no sound anymore. Is this a known issue? How can I solve this problem?

Looks like you aren't the only one with this problem. A simple reboot seems to be working for most people, with some having to do a factory reset. If you have to do that, don't forget to use an app such as Titanium Backup to back up your apps first.

True. I already rebooted it, and hadn't noticed the sound was ok, now. Thank you.

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


text:
Zeroconf mDNS on Android?
Is it possible for me to run a Zeroconf mDNS server on my Android phone? Something like Avahi on Linux.
The reason I ask is because I run an SSH/SFTP server on my phone for transferring files to/from the phone. Right now I have to connect using the local IP address (10.1.0.x) and the IP changes via DHCP. I'd like to simply be able to connect to my phone using a .local address.
I don't think Dynamic DNS will work, because I want my LAN address (the private IP, 10.1.0.x) not my public NAT IP.

Do you have any control over the (presumably wireless) LAN that you're connecting your phone to? It seems to me that the main part of your problem is just that your phone picks up different IP addresses each time it connects to your LAN. If it always had the same IP, then you could either make a note of this, save it in your SSH client, or assign a name to that IP on your other machine(s) using a HOSTS file or similar.
Are you in control of your network, or do you know the person that is? You (or they) should be able to assign a static IP address, or a reserved IP address, to your device so that every time you connect your phone to the LAN it always picks up the same IP address.
If it's a small, personal network then this would just be a setting on your device's record on your router, if this is a larger network then it would be setup on the DHCP server and a matching A name record could also be setup on their internal DNS to give you a permanent name.

Thanks, this was what I ended up doing -- I assigned a static DHCP mapping for the phone on my router, and then added that IP to my local DNS server. Solved the problem for me but it wouldn't necessarily solve it for others.

Just as a comment: I change networks often but I still want to arrange for my devices to know each others' addresses, so this isn't a general solution. It would be better if Android supported Zeroconf.

This solution works fine at home... but the thing about android devices is they tend to be portable... and these days, so do computers! :) Connecting from my laptop to my phone is something I'd like to be able to easily do anywhere, whenever they are on the same network, whether I have control over it or not. mDNS provided a solution to this problem years ago... is it still impossible to take advantage of on Android?

@Josh the original question was focussed on a device that would need to be discoverable on a particular network, if you need a solution that will work as you roam between different networks (and different types of networks) then that is a different question. Please ask yours as a new question, and feel free to link back to this question stating the differences in your needs.

Currently there is no Avahi daemon on Android and open ticket #354 at Avahi tracker, where there are attached patches, needs to be addressed to make a build for Android possible.
You can try to build it manually, if really needed.

Is there still no avahi daemon on Android? :)

Wow, that is really shocking and pathetic at the same time. The above link is dead by the way, no such page at the Avahi tracker. This sucks, this is sad and not good engineering! I'm actually going to have to enter a different IP each time, just because Android is too dumb to get this.


text:
Android sleep of death (SOD)
I purchased a new Android Phone which is pre-installed with V2.1 Eclair. At least once in a day phone gets dead (At this stage I cannot press and any key or unable to make/receive calls). The only option I have at this stage is to remove and re-insert my phone's battery.
I googled all the day for it and found many people says that the issue is with wifi. But I never enabled/used Wifi before. This happens more than once in a day. I took my phone to service centre and they reinstalled OS but still the issue persists. I strongly believe its issue with s/w. Anybody help me get rid of this issue.
Thanks in advance!

What type of phone?

@Chance - Its MicroMax A60.

You don't need to remove & re-insert battery.. try pressing & holding power button for 10 seconds & release..

@SachinShekhar - I tried that before. But no use.

Have you tried using a different battery?  Low chance this will help, but I'd give that a shot just to rule out the possibility of a defective battery.

I would seriously consider rooting and installing a custom ROM.  I've installed custom ROMs which gave me the SOD issue - my point is that I believe SOD is in fact tied to what ROM (whether stock or custom) you are running. This question details various things on rooting.  For specific directions on rooting and custom ROM for your phone model, you'll have to do a search here for that or on Google.


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What are the differences between different versions of Angry Birds Space?
I own both an Android phone and a tablet and I am trying to figure out what the differences are between these Angry Birds Space versions:

Angry Birds Space
Angry Birds Space Premium
Angry Birds Space HD

One is free and the other two are paid apps, but looking at the description they seem to have the same content and features. Can someone clarify the differences?

Both premium and HD are ad-free and the latter is for tablets.

But if I buy the HD version can I have the ad-free version also on my phone? Or do I have to buy both?

@Drake I think you have to buy both.

The HD version doesn't show up on phones at least not for me.

Yesterday I tried to install Angry Birds Space on my tablet. It has in-game ads as expected, but its graphics seems native (1280x800) and not stretched. I am wondering now what are really the differences between Angry Birds Space HD and Angry Birds Space Premium to justify the big cost difference.

There seems to be a little uproar on Amazon support because Fire users can only install HD but apparently they can't notice any difference between the two versions either.

I checked out the HD version in the Google Play Store on my Motorola Xoom tablet. I have discovered that there is virtually no difference really, and definitely not worth the $2.98. Feel free to check it out for yourself, because unlike iOS, Android has the option to refund your purchase within 15 minutes, I believe, of the time of purchase. I refunded mine because the only differences I could find were that the start-up screen after the white "Rovio" screen was not stretched (but every other screen/level I tried was), and also when you are in a level or at the start-up screen where you press "Play", the pause buttons are slightly larger.
I also believe it is pointless to purchase the Premium version on either a tablet or phone, because the only difference is that it is ad-free, to my knowledge. A helpful little tip that Rovio doesn't want anyone to know is that the ads the put in the free version require some form of internet connection to be generated in the game. So to solve this, you could just put your phone/tablet on Airplane Mode if you want since it's simpler, but all you really have to do is disable the WiFi AND data services on your smartphone, and boom - no ads. Obviously, on your tablet (assuming you don't have 3G/4G) all you have to do is disable WiFi. I actually have widgets from HD Widgets (which I highly recommend and is well worth the $1.99) that allows you to disable both data services and WiFi with the tap of a button. And there you go, you've just saved a dollar. Or three.
Hope this helps and clears things up for everyone.

The Google Play store will let you know which devices each one is compatible with.  The Premium was compatible with all my phone-sized devices.
Note that there is also one that is tuned for the Kindle Fire called Angry Birds Space HD (Kindle Fire Edition) in the Amazon Appstore.

The HD is also available in the play store, so it's not Fire specific.

I noticed on my tablet when I downloaded the regular free version that is doesn't have those danger missions, but it does on the phone for all Samsung users apparently. On iOS i believe it is an in-app purchase. Check out:
http://www.angrybirdsnest.com/angry-birds-space-now-available/


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Shaky, drifting compass an inevitability on Samsung Nexus S?
I bought a Nexus S off eBay and found that the compass direction wanders even with the device laying still. Likewise, the display in Google Sky shakes around even with the resting on a stable surface, and it often doesn't align correctly with the stars. SkEye reports "Warning: Strange Magnetic field!". Calibrating using Advanced tools doesn't fix the problem.
I'm running ICS 4.0.3.
Doing some searching, I've found mention of other problems of the sort with the Nexus S. It's not clear whether these are just anecdotes suggesting that I have unit with a defect. Or perhaps there is a hardware or software design flaw and nothing wrong with this particular unit. Where does one look to determine if there is a pervasive problem with a given model and OS version? Anyone know specifically for Nexus S and ICS 4.0.3?

Happens to my brand-new store-bought Nexus S too.  I'd always assumed that's simply the state of the art in smartphone compasses.  (Google Sky, I assume, is genuinely buggy, since it shakes far more than seems reasonable, even given the flaky compass.)

Good point about Google Sky being buggy. Playing with the sensor speed and damping didn't help the shaking. SkEye doesn't hold still either, but it is better. Perhaps I got spoiled using Planets on an iPhone 4, where I've never experienced any problems. Do you get a "Strange Magnetic Field" warning in SkEye?

Just to verify, you don't have anything magnetic nearby, and you've tried waving the phone in a figure 8 pattern (at least that's the method on my HTC)?

I've tried several locations to minimize chance of magnetic interference and verified that the iPhone doesn't seem to have any difficulty (but I avoid putting the two phones near each other when testing). I've tried calibrating with both the figure-eight motion and rotating on all three axes.

Had a Nexus S and experienced the same issue, which wasn't present in the Nexus One.
Though my online research, the unofficial stance was that this is a hardware defect in the product line that Samsung and Google either didn't notice or noticed too late to do anything about.  The most appropriate place to complain about this would be the Google Product Forums.  Here's a thread where this issue is being discussed.
http://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/m/#!topic/mobile/8ODgVdPy5Wk
...an alternative would be the call Samsung up and see if they will acknowledge that its a hardware flaw.
Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any fixes for the issue, and have found that although the work around (calibration) helps, the problem either doesn't completely go away or recurs soon after.  Just to confirm, the behavior I noticed was:

In programs that display compass data (like Marine Compass) rotating the phone results in a partial rotation in the sensor data, followed by an unexpected 90 degree phantom rotation, according to the phone.  This puts the displayed barring out of step with the true direction the phone is pointing.
In programs that try to display the full orientation of the phone including the direction it's pointing (like Sky Map) the display is shakey, and seldom provides a true indication of where the phone's actually pointing.  Smoothing options result in slightly less shake, but the difference is marginal.
In spite.of this, games that depended on changes in orientation alone (like those games with the metal ball-bearings you need to guide through a maze--Labyrinth, if I'm not mistaken) worked flawlessly.

I decided to upgrade to a Galaxy Nexus, and noticed that the compass works like it should, and Labyrinth games continue to work. Sky Map, however is still jumpy.

I posted. We'll see if anything comes of it. At least I know it's not just my phone, which is what I wanted to know for now.

It's not the hardware gang,  it's a programming flaw in Ice Cream Sandwich.  My Galaxy Blaze's compass worked flawlessly until I upgraded from Gingerbread to ICS.  It seems like they misconnected or merged two of the axies or improperly handled the
data.


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Gmail has gone completely crazy
Gmail went completely crazy, I don't know what to do.
When I open it I get the inbox, but the app is almost unresponsive: whatever I do, be it opening the menu, scrolling or opening a message, it starts to do it (the menu starts opening, the message gets highlighted) but after a fraction of a second it flashes and gets back to the inbox itself as if nothing happened.
I still receive new mail notifications in the top bar, but clicking them prompts the inbox anyway, with the same problems.
Even after managing to evade the application using the home button, sometimes it pops up again, going crazy even if I don't touch it (flashing repeatedly the inbox, doing a "left to right" slide-like effect), and the whole system can be unresponsive for a while.
Other applications, including google ones (calendar, docs, contacts), appear to have no problems.
Phone is a Nexus S, was running android 2.3.4, I upgraded to 2.3.6 and upgraded the gmail app too, but nothing changed.
Doing a "clear data" prompts the "mails will appear shortly" screen, and there the menu works, but as soon as I receive the emails, it goes crazy again.
I'm clueless, what could I do?

apparently I'm not the only one with this problem: http://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/d/topic/mobile/WbS58lDO2VY/discussion

That's seriously weird. I had some problems with Gmail too recently but nothing like this. One poster there mentioned changing the account password hlped, did you try that?

Have a look at this discussion.
Is your problem same as the one discussed here? If so, Google is working on a fix.

This thread apparently is more up-to-date than the one I linked, thanks.


text:
What does the voice privacy setting do?
In perusing the settings on my EVO today, I noticed that there is an option under call settings named "Voice Privacy". The description beneath the checkbox merely states "Enable enhanced privacy mode":

The screenshot is from Deck's ICS pre-beta, but I'm fairly positive I saw this in CM7 as well because it seems very familiar. I've also seen this settings on my Verizon Galaxy Nexus running both ICS (stock and CM9) and Jelly Bean.
Both phones I've seen this on were CDMA devices - an HTC EVO on Sprint, and a Verizon Galaxy Nexus. What little information I've been able to dig up seems to suggest that it may be unique to CDMA, but I cannot say that for certain.
What does this setting do? Some theories I've found on forums have included reducing the earpiece volume (so others can't overhear your conversation, I suppose?) and adding extra encryption to the CDMA connection, but I haven't found anything definitive.

This setting is not available on my CM7 GSM device (Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant). edit: I found one place that said: 'it automagically translates your voice into Kilngon for transmission' - I want to think that it does this...

Haven't ever seen this on any of my devices. Do you have a CDMA phone or a GSM one?

@ce4: Both phones I saw this on were CDMA. First was an HTC EVO (Sprint), now I have a Galaxy Nexus (Verizon).

This is a feature of CDMA (standardized in IS-95) and is called Voice Privacy.
See an Analysis of IS-95 CDMA Voice Privacy by M.Zhang, et al. from 2000, free download here
Citation (the real paper begins at p.10 in the PDF:
Abstract. The voice privacy of IS-95 CDMA cellular system is analyzed
in this paper. By exploiting information redundancy on the downlink
traffic channel, it is shown that an eavesdropper can recover the voice
privacy mask after eavesdropping the transmission on the downlink traf-
fic channel for about one second. Thus, IS-95 CDMA voice privacy is
vulnerable under ciphertext-only attacks.
That cryptanalysis is now 12 years old and already then was the scheme considered broken. I guess it's easy to suggest to just leave the setting disabled.
By combining some information grepped from the android source, I'm pretty sure it's what you're asking for.
To make it a little more transparent here are some source references:
packages/apps/Phone/res/xml/cdma_call_privacy.xml defines:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<PreferenceScreen xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        xmlns:settings="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/com.android.phone"
        android:title="@string/additional_cdma_call_settings">

    <com.android.phone.CdmaVoicePrivacyCheckBoxPreference
        android:key="button_voice_privacy_key"
        android:title="@string/voice_privacy"
        android:persistent="false"
        android:summary="@string/voice_privacy_summary"/>
</PreferenceScreen>

packages/apps/Phone/res/values/strings.xml defines those strings:
<string name="voice_privacy">Voice Privacy</string>
<string name="voice_privacy_summary">Enable enhanced privacy mode</string>

./hardware/ril/include/telephony/ril.h defines also:
typedef struct {
    RIL_CallState   state;
[...]
    char            isVoice;    /* nonzero if this is is a voice call */
    char            isVoicePrivacy;     /* nonzero if CDMA voice privacy mode is active */
[...]
} RIL_Call;

For the record: I did compile this answer (longest part was to include and reference all the grepped stuff) while ryan was a little faster to post. Haven't seen his answer until after the post though. :-)

sorry for the dev stuff - Don't be! If you can support your answer with Android source code then I say by all means, do it! Providing a "layman" summary is helpful for non-programmers, but if you look at some of my posts I think you'll find I'm certainly not opposed to delving into AOSP to find answers :)

Removed. Thanks for the hint! "Delving into AOSP to find answers": absolutely correct. That's where the ultimate answers lie, it's the only way to be sure (TM) sometimes :-)

Use the source luke :P

Voice Privacy is something that is part of CDMA. I found this article that talks a little bit about it in the introduction.

Voice privacy of IS-95 CDMA is provided by means of the long code
  mask.The long code mask is not transmitted through any channel, it is
  constructedby the base station and the mobile station. To recover the
  long code sequence,the eavesdropper may exhaustively search the 42-bit
  long code mask, with atime complexity of O(2 42 ). This attack is
  viable but is hard to implement inreal time. Alternatively, it can be
  shown that the long code sequence can also be recovered if the
  eavesdropper can obtain 42 bits of plaintext-ciphertext pairs.As there
  are many mobile stations transmitting simultaneously on the tra
  cchannel and each mobile station only transmits approximately 3
  minutes onthe average, it is rather di cult to obtain 42 bits of the
  plaintext message.

I have also found a couple posts that talk about how sprint did studies that said it isn't really any more secure, unless your eavesdropper has tons of money to spend on decrypting your call.

Actually, voice privacy on CDMA is an added layer of voice encryption.
  Sprint did some independent research (I've heard quotes as big as a
  million dollars worth) and determined that CDMA without Voice Privacy
  is just as secure (unless you've got a million dollars worth of
  financing to break into an individual phone call)...
In other words, turn the feature off, and don't worry about it.

"In other words, turn the feature off, and don't worry about it." -- what's the disadvantage of leaving it turned on?

It's fundamentally broken. Period. Researchers have 'shown that an eavesdropper can recover the voice privacy mask after eavesdropping the transmission on the downlink traf- fic channel for about one second'.

Am curious, as coming from EU, with GSM, why is that in there in the first place?

It's just a feature of the competing CDMA standard and because it's optional, someone chose to make it an option also in android. However: GSM is also fundamentally broken. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl5uq7EzVYQ for more.

From the My HTC EVO 3D book:

Touch to enable voice privacy, which makes your EVO 3D encrypt your
  phone calls.

What is Voice Privacy?
When you enable Voice Privacy, your EVO 3D starts encrypting your
  calls so nobody can eavesdrop on them.  ...  By encrypting your phone
  calls between your EVO 3d and the cell tower, you add an extra layer
  of protection on your calls just in case someone wants to try to
  listen in. For this feature to work, your cellular service provider
  must support it, otherwise enabling it on your EVO 3D is useless.


text:
Could not see "persist.service.adb.enable" value from default.prop of Android device?
I read some guide to get the persist.service.adb.enable value, and it said that it belongs to default.prop file on device. Its content should be:
#
# ADDITIONAL_DEFAULT_PROPERTIES
#
ro.secure=1
ro.debuggable=0
persist.service.adb.enable=0

But when i connect device to PC (Linux), try to pull out this file from device (both emulator and Samsung Galaxy Nexus), the content of default.prop file is only:
#
# ADDITIONAL_DEFAULT_PROPERTIES
#
ro.secure=1
ro.debuggable=0
persist.sys.usb.config=mass_storage

So I could not see persist.service.adb.enable. Could anyone tell me why, and how can i got it?

According to the official android documentation, another way to get this value is to use the getprop command. (Link takes you to search results for getprop.)
I have not tested this.
I'm assuming you want to also set this value, not just get it? You can use the command line on the phone to do so.  (Disclaimer: I've only tried this in Donut, Froyo, and Gingerbread.)
setprop persist.service.adb.enable 1
This is the USB debugging setting; you can also just turn on USB debugging.

In ICS, persist.service.adb.enable=0 has been replaced by persist.sys.usb.config=mass_storage, so you if you want to eanble ADB, you can setprop persist.sys.usb.config=mass_storage,adb

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


text:
my phone hit a pavement and 3g/4g stopped working. next step?
As I was cycling, my htc rezound fell on the pavement. The battery popped out.
There are few scratches but no visible damage.
I start the phone and it's fine as long as I don't use data.
Once I use data, the phone uses "1" may be it's ev-do. speedtest shows 129 kbps down rate.
I tried flashing and installing a leaked ICS. that didn't solve the problem.
I would think that the damage was because of the physical shock of hitting the ground (nothing broke). so is there a way to diagnose it? to check if 4g is still working?

Maybe contact the carrier, they may be able to do some test on the device to see if it is actually able to connect to the 4g network.

In the HTC Dream (G1) the UMTS radio (3G) is a separate board from the rest of the phone. While this is a Desire Z and I haven't had the opportunity to take one apart, it's probably very similar.
The 3G/4G daughterboard (or if it's connected, antenna) could have failed, cracked, disconnected or sustained damage in some other way. Software won't fix it. You have damaged hardware.

is it hard to buy a replacement or my only option is to ship it to htc?

I am not sure only because I don't know exactly what failed. I'd have to look at the Desire Z teardowns to know for sure.

http://tjworld.net/blog/htc-desire-z-tear-down Does not seem like there's a separate daughterboard. Ship the phone to HTC.

The antennas on the Rezound are built into the battery cover.  It could be as simple as a bad contact that could be repaired by replacing the battery cover.


text:
Upload my own videos to Google Play?
Is it possible to sync my own video with Google Play Video (like in Google Play Music)?
I know that it's not possible on Google Books, I am wondering how about videos.
What will be a good alternative for syncing videos?

Right now it is not possible to sync through Play Video, however, you may soon be able to purchase movies from the market and have them stay in the cloud until needed.
You could try alternatives such as Box, or Dropbox, (there are many competitors in this file-locker space), they allows you to sync nearly anything across devices.
Google Video, at least on my Xoom, will pick up movies out of any folder without the .nomedia file in it.
(edited to remove falsehood of no Google Services allowing syncing :) )

And what if I have a video of my wedding and wanna upload? I guess I'm looking for an alternative, which is?

It is very possible to sync videos via Google's services.  Take a look at Google+ and Picasa.  I have all my personal videos (and photos) uploaded to Picasa Web Albums, and can access them via the Gallery app on my phone.  Google+ app allows me to auto-upload videos taken on the phone to my G+ account, which is the same place as the Picasa Albums.

IMHO they should have make it a unified service Music, Videos, Books, Podcasts (listen), all should be accessed and managed from one place. Whatcha think?

There has been talk/rumors about a Google offered File Locker service in the works - Google Drive

If you use Google+, you could install the Google+ app which can auto-upload videos and photos from your phone to your G+ account.
These photos and videos can also be accessed online via Picasa Web Albums which point to the same place as your Google+ photo albums.  On the phone these become visible in the built-in Gallery app, if you enable the Sync Google Photos and Sync Google+ options on your account via Settings -> Accounts & sync -> <your Google account>.  On the desktop you can use Google's own Picasa application to organize and sync your photos/videos between your PC and your Google account.

Can it also sync my DVDs from my computer to my device?

Copyright debate aside, it should be possible if you rip the DVDs into supported video formats.  However, Google's "cloud" storage that's in use by Google+ and Picasa is only free for the first 1 GB (some files don't count toward this limit.)  After that limit is reached, you'll need to upgrade to paid storage.  See this article for details: http://support.google.com/docs/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=39567


text:
What is the synchronization source for the internal clock
Using a tool to compare the internal clock of my Android device to internet time servers, I noticed my device is 30 seconds wrong.
So that made me wondering what is the cause of this error. Where does Android gets it time from, so I can adjust or complain there:
I can think of the following sources:

Provided by the cellular network provider.
From GPS.
From a NTP server on the local WIFI network.
A global NTP server (hosted by Google)?

I've never understood why smartphone clocks are typically never synchronised by the OS with the time data received from GPS. I understand that there are 3rd party apps that can do this, it just seems a really obvious feature.

When I go to my Date & time settings, there is option that says: Automatic - Use network-provided values.
So, basing on this wording (also in other languages), I would say that automatic time is provided from your carrier.
There are apps, that can sync your clock with GPS satellites or NTP servers.

Note that there are carriers that doesn't provide time synchronization service, on those carriers you have to synchronize your clock manually

And without the device being rooted, those apps can only adjust the device's time when it's at least 30s off, unfortunately...

When I set a wrong time and switch back to automatic time, it's off by 0.2-0.3 seconds. Do you have anymore info on how this carrier-provided network time works? Like, does it literally go "Hey what's the time" -> "it's 12:43:30.2" or is there some back and forth to figure out the latency? Because 0.2-0.3s latency sounds fitting to me over 3g (HSDPA) abroad and would be a really stupid way of doing this.


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Google video hangouts on 2.3.5 Android phones?
Can one use Google's video hangout on a 2.3.5 Android phone with front camera? My phone has both a front camera and a back camera.

Yes, any phone that has a front-facing camera and is running Gingerbread (Android 2.3.x) and above will be able to join and initiate Hangouts with the latest version of Google+ app.


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What do "NAND", "ROM" and "to flash" mean?

Possible Duplicate:
What is the difference between: Rooting, Jailbreak, ROM, Mod, etc.?

I'd like to know the meaning of the following terms:

What does NAND mean?
What is a ROM? Is it a custom OS?
What does "to flash" refer to (as in, to flash a ROM)? Does it mean to copy?

A Nandroid backup is a backup of your phone that is an exact image of the state of your phone. So you could make an exact copy of your current phone, then do major changes to it, and then restore to your previous backup by flashing the backup back to the phone. Flashing means to copy or to install.... you are essentially wiping the device and restoring a previous state (a backup) or you are flashing a new ROM (which is a custom version of Android).
More info: I've rooted my phone.  Now what?  What do I gain from rooting?, What is the difference between: Rooting, Jailbreak, ROM, Mod, etc.? , etc.

It sounds like the OP actually wants to know what "NAND" means, not "nandroid" (could be wrong, but that's how the question is posed).

I've integrated this into the wiki question -- no need to split them up, IMO.  Have an upvote though ;)

@eldareathis hmm, usually nand refers to nandroid backups (in the realm of Android).... I didn't think he meant the boolean logic NAND :)

Neither did I. I meant NAND memory, which is where "nandroid" gets its name from and is also within the realm of Android.


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Call Recorder not using microphone to record the other side
Any Call Recorders that are digital - not using my microphone to listen to what is said in the other end?
What about recording calls over Bluetooth?
(It seems most most of these applications record what goes into my microphone, and listen to the other side through my microphone, often turning up the speaker to do that)

possible duplicate of Is there a way to easily record a phone conversation in-progress?

No its not a duplicate because most of these apps are using the microphone

I think they work by recording anything going into the mic, and they turn on the speakerphone, to listen to the other side.

I'm confused about what you're asking for. Are you looking for an app that only records one side of the conversation?

No, but the difficult thing is the other side.

Did a rewrite to stress the problem with existing apps.

Call Recorder - Boldbeast does all the above - record via bluetooth and both sides of the conversation. You may want to check if your specific phone needs to be rooted.

This is something that has to be enabled in the kernel. Some custom kernels do implement this, depending on your device.

This is the most correct answer here. With proper custom kernel support, you very much can have 2-way call recording, often abbreviated as 2WCR.

I talked to the developer and mediarecorder_voice_call works if properly implemented in phone firmware, however many disable it out of fear (mostly in the US it seems).
Some (like skvalex's) rely on root/alsa/kernel support, which is not for the masses.
At the same time, even with proper voice_call support, bluetooth doesn't work because of android (or linux?) limitation.
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?can=2&start=0&num=100&q=&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20Stars&groupby=&sort=&id=60323

Some Android phones have following issues:

Can't record calls.
Can record calls, but in recordings the sound of your side is very weak.
Can record calls, but in recordings the sound of the other side is very weak.
Can record calls, but during recording you can't hear the caller's voice.
Can record calls, but during recording the caller can't hear your voice.
Can record calls, but when you play back the recordings they sound like fast forwarding or fast rewinding.
Some other issues maybe.

These issues are not caused by the call recorder, actually they are caused by the manufacturer intentionally - the manufacturer disabled the call recording feature of your phone. You should install a powerful call recorder that can fix this problem, for example this Call Recorder.
About bluetooth call recording problem

Some phones support bluetooth call recording perfectly, just install any call recorder and go.
The hardware of some phones don't support bluetooth call recording, for example Galaxy Note 2 GT-I7100, GT-7105, Galaxy S3 GT-I9300 etc that use the WM1811 audio chip. In this case all call recorders don't work.
The hardware of some phones support bluetooth call recording but the ROM doesn't support it, for example Galaxy Note3, Galaxy Note4, Galaxy S2, Galaxy S5 etc. In this case you should root your phone and install a call recorder that can fix this problem, for example Boldbeast Call Recorder, it can fix this problem for many phones.
Please note Galaxy phones have many variants, they are different from each other, for example Galaxy S3 GT-I9300 doesn't support bluetooth call recording, but Galaxy S3 SGH-I747, SCH-I535 may support it, or can be fixed.

How manufacturers disable the call recording feature
Indeed almost all android phones' kernel support call recording perfectly, manufacturers usually disable the call recording feature out of the kernel (not in the kernel). If the recorder gets root access and it supports your phone it can fix the recording problem, no need to change the kernel.

Sorry to inform you: But that's a limitation in the system itself. Android simply doesn't allow this, and offers no API to record the "remote side" -- which is the reason it's hard to find any app doing so satisfactory. You will find several developer discussions on this topic, and it seems it turned out "being hard to work around that limitation" is a big euphemism.

I still find it bewildering how old Nokia phones can and has the option to record voice calls built-in to the phone whereas, something as advanced as an Android would fall short of such feature.

It's clearly not a hardware issue, and I agree with you: every old-fashioned analog fixed-line can record calls, so this can't be some legal issue either. To not spy on you, there could be some permission used (the permission system IMHO could also use some overhaul -- e.g. permission.INTERNET could be a bit more finegrained) -- so I really see no reason to completely block this. Unfortunately, I have no say in this area -- I'm not important enough to make Google listen...

We should start a petition then :)

Which one? Just take a look at all the tickets currently open on Androids bug tracker. There already have been plenty, and for years -- but they simply get closed with the argument "works as designed"...


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Why do QR scanner apps want to access my contact list?
I want an app to scan the occasional QR code which usually should contain an URL.
The other day, I meant to download an app for that and searched the market for one that does not want access to all my contacts, my granny's underpants, and whatever else it could get its grubby hands on — to no avail.
How is it that they all want to dig into my pants contacts? Am I missing something or is that really just data mining on the app writers' part?

Let me add: I am using Barcode Scanner by ZXing Team from F-Droid. The F-Droid folks build the apps themselves, from the sources, removing ad-libs if necessary. I generally trust them way more than what you find at the Play Store.
(That said, I seem to remember that this app is also available at the Play Store. There, however, it's uploaded by the creator, and you don't know if he did upload exactly the version that's open-sourced.)

Here is QR Droid Private. It does not access your contact information.
Usually, the reason they want contact access is because you can store contact information in a QR code. So when scanned, it sees that it is a contact and adds it to your contacts. Without access to your contacts, it would not be able to do this. Another reason is that some of the apps allow you to create QR codes from your contacts. It would need read permission to do this.
Here is an example of a vCard stored in a QR code:

Here is the data that is stored in there:
BEGIN:VCARD
N:John Q. Public
ORG:Acme
TITLE:CEO
TEL:3125555555
URL:http://example.com
EMAIL:john.q.public@email.com
ADR:1234 any street suite 300 Someville\, ST 00000
END:VCARD

I think this shows why the permissions are handled all wrong.  Instead of having to accept an app that mysteriously requires some set of permissions, Android should've been set up to allow us to turn them on and off on a per-app basis, then let the app pop up a dialog "You scanned a contact, but I don't have permission", if and only if you try to use that feature.

@LarryGritz: I wholeheartedly agree. Why do I have to either slavishly follow some app writer's whim on what they want to access, or abstain from installing the app altogether? As long as I'm content with a QR reader not being able to exchange contact infos, I could use any QR reader if I only could tell the system to deny it access to my contact list. As it is, I either have to find one whose writer voluntarily excluded that feature or I have to voluntarily surrender my private data.

QR Droid Private is not as private as it seems. According to Clueful Privacy Advisor, this app (v5.7) communicates with both Appoxee and Flurry (analytics/adware services). These are not listed under the app's permissions. Other reviewers in Google Play have stated that they started getting popup adds after installing this app.

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


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Is it normal for the Galaxy Nexus to have an Odin mode?
I just received my apparently new Galaxy Nexus, and I noticed that it has an "Odin mode" bootloader, which is strange since Nexus devices use fastboot.  Should I be worried?  Did someone mess with my phone?

@eldarerathis I guess it imported superuser from my google account. I had it installed on a previous phone.

I'm undeleting because I think the point about the download mdoes could be useful to others.  I'll edit out the bit about your SU mixup :P

Unlike the Nexus S, the Galaxy Nexus has the Odin download mode.  It does have a fastboot mode as well though.  So this is normal and you have nothing to worry about.
My guess is that Samsung just prefers working with Odin and didn't like having to work without it for the Nexus S.  Or perhaps they had it in the latter but disabled it, and didn't bother doing so for the GNex.


text:
Access Android device's file system over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi
I'm looking for a way to access the file system of an Android device (Nexus S) wirelessly, as its USB port has become unfit for anything but charging. Ideally, I'd like the same functionality as offered by connecting the phone to a PC with a USB cable.

Over Wi-Fi
Install a small app SwiFTP FTP Server. (original link 'dead' - 2012-09-22, see 'http://ppareit.github.com/swiftp/' instead ) Just, setup username & password. After tapping Start button, your device will become FTP server & the app will give you URL (handy if you don't know device IP & FTP URL format). On PC, you can use any FTP client software to access file system of device. Windows Explorer works, too. You can also create a network drive in computer. For example, you can visit this in address bar of Windows Explorer:
ftp://192.168.1.10:2121/

Here, 192.168.1.10 is IP of Android device & 2121 is port on which FTP server is working (you can configure port in app, too). Visiting it will ask you username & password. Enter what you specified in app. Done!
The app will not give you URL if device is not connected to PC using external Wi-Fi router, but it works in those situation too. If you've made device Wi-fi Hotspot & connected PC with Ad-hoc network, then you'll have to find device IP by yourself (ipconfig /all command is fine with Windows). It really works as long as you've IP of device (I've tested it by myself). Just, use this IP in FTP URL & visit it.
The Interesting Thing: As FTP is universal standard, this method will work with any PC, Mac. That's not true for Samba file share, AirDroid etc.
Over Bluetooth
There's no need of external app. If Bluetooth software on PC supports OBEX FTP, you can do this directly. If you've issues with stock bluetooth services, install Bluetooth File Transfer app. It supports both OBEX FTP and OPP. Means, you can do both-side file system access: device to PC & PC to device!

Notice that ftp is an inherently insecure protocol...

@miniBill Enter FTPS or FTPES which are almost similar to FTP, but they have compatibility issues. For most of home users, getting things done matters more... not full-time security. Occasionally, file encryption etc can be used to transfer sensitive data (use BoxCryptor without internet).

Security is not that important, on a LAN. But what about public wifi hotspots?

@miniBill The answer also includes MobileAP based solution which is available everywhere.

The "Bluetooth File Transfer" by Medieval software linked in this answer has some serious drawbacks: I found that it would not allow me to browse the whole filesystem, only one portion that it decided to default to, meaning that all of my SD-stored media was inaccessible.

Not exactly "accessing the filesystem", but you could try AirDroid. It has a really nice file manager.

There are many ways, you can use ADB over wifi, run an FTP or SSH server on the phone, or use Dropbox.
The easiest to set up is Dropbox, but it's fairly limited which files and you can synchronize. The best solution would be installing an FTP/SSH server on the phone, but setting up those might be difficult.

I don't suppose any of these will work over Bluetooth?

With Samba you can access the files like a network share.
I think it requires a rooted phone though.
Should be better than FTP, and it should also be better than USB in that the phone can use the card in the same way (you don't need a specific mode)

Samba Filesharing is a great app for connecting over wifi, but does require root.  I use it regularly myself.  Just turn on wifi, fire up the app, and then you can browse your SD card from your pc.

How is the app requiring root a mistake? BTW, if you read the app description it will tell it needs root under the requirements.

So I did! Dur.  Corrected.

Excellent, I deleted my original comment as it may only cause confusion now...

AndSMB is functionally more useful among free samba file sharing apps.

It is SMB client. What it has to do with the topic?

If you're just looking for a way to easily transfer files to and from your device wirelessly, then rather than an app that lets you access the device's filesystem directly you might want to consider using a file synchronization app instead.
For example, if you use Syncthing to synchronize certain directories (music, pictures, video) on your phone to your PC, then when you want to copy or change a file on your phone you can just update it in the synced directory on your PC. This method is much faster than directly accessing the phone's filesystem, since the actual copy operation happens silently in the background. No need for your phone to even be online at the time; it'll automatically synchronize next time you connect to Wi-Fi. As an added bonus, this solution also doubles as a local backup of all your pictures and other files on on phone.
I realize this isn't quite what you asked for, but I felt I should mention it anyway since I was having a similar problem and this solved it for me.

but does that mean those files and folderst will have to stay on computer in same folder and if you remove , they will be removed from phone as well, like in dropbox?


text:
How safe is android compared to other mobile platforms?
Recently I get the impression malware is only present on Android (compared to other mobile platforms) as every IT news magazine reports only on Android malware. (I guess it is also involved with the fact that mobil devices become more and more powerful and also mobile malware evolves => kind of populism) However, when I do web search indeed I get the impression that Android is the excellent platform for malware:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/08/android-malware-explodes-ios-remains-safe/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/245380/ios_safer_from_malware_than_android_security_firm_says.html

What do you think? Are those ratings biased?, Why? On the other hand Android is the most common mobile operating system making it an attractive place for malware. Additionally manufactors do not update their devices with newer versions (as they want to sell newer phones with newer android versions (fragmentation)). And last but not least the android market is some how not as restrictive as the iOS store, right?
<edit>
And yes of course: classifying what actually is malware is not so clear, so it depends how and who is calculating "malware".
</edit>

Google estimates only 0.001% of installed apps try to evade Android runtime defenses

This is too big for a comment, so here goes:

Both articles cite one and the same McAfee report.
McAfee is a security products vendor, hardly an impartial observer to the malware scene.
McAfee does not have products which for iOS devices, but they most certainly do for Android devices. And paid, too. Turns out they might have for both platforms. I can't be bothered to install iTunes to verify.
Android is the fastest-growing mobile platform, and with an absolutely crazy 73%+ growth rate, and now has 48% market share, compared to just 10% in the beginning of 2010.

No big surprise here -- this is just a marketing ploy by a security vendor to sell more products. The same trick they pulled off with other AV vendors that they did with PCs in the mid-2000s.
As an aside, security is not all that much platform-dependent as it is people-dependent. Most of the largest security breaches are caused by social engineering attacks rather than technical limitations. I have yet to see with my eyes an Android malware application, it has always been beyond me how people manage to get infected. See also this related question on whether you need AV on your Android (short answer -- no).
Your phone should be secure as long as you use common sense while installing and using applications. Don't trust anything that's on the Market Play Store, the same way as you wouldn't trust a random PC program, or a Facebook "app" for that matter.
iOS and Anrdoid security concerns pop here and there in the news occasionally, but from observing both markets for some time I'm fairly convinced that both platforms offer reasonable (technical) protection to their users, and offending applications are removed with short notice. Google has even removed malware applications from devices without user discretion at least once.

Your phone should be secure as long as you use common sense while installing and using applications. A thousand times this. The kinds of apps they note existing "in the wild" in these studies are always absolutely trivial to spot and avoid (if you think you're getting Angry Birds without ads for free or an app full of naked ladies - you're not).

Just look at the permissions when installing apps and you should be fine.

As far as the safety of Android, it depends a little more on the user.  iOs has a vetting process for their apps, so it is very hard for malware to get onto the app store.  With Android, it is much easier to put an app on the Market.  Also, if the phone is configured to install from unknown sources, you can install software from anywhere.
However, if someone is smart about the aps they install, it is not an issue.  Restrict app installation to the Google Play/Market store and the Amazon App Store, or other trusted software companies.  When you install from the Google Play/Market, look at the number of downloads and the ratings - these provide an indication of how much you can trust the app.

You must distinguish security between

programming errors that make a system less secure (as in the article your referenced) and
the security-architecture.

I am only writinge about security-architecture.
Android has a sandbox that shields the apps from each other and from sensitive os-features.
On installation an android-app requires permissions to sensitive issues: access internet, files, adressbook, ......
If the running app tries to access some sensitive api whre there are no permissions the app is aboarted.
On unrooted devices the os does not allow to write to os-files. One app cannot access other apps' private files.
This is a good starting point for security.
However there is no fine grained security:
example: either an android app is allowed to access all internet or internet is not allowed. you can not restrict an android app to access only a certain url. there is no way that you can specify "ask me every time the app wants to access the internet."
the same applies to other sensitive issues as well: contacts, making sms-calls, accessing public folders in the filesystem, ....
So as long there is no "allow on demand" feature in the os and no more fine grained security-settings for me android up to version 4 is not secure enough. But as an open source system it has the potential to become more secure over time.
Comparison to other mobile os.
The dotnet-platform of Windows Mobile 6 and its predecessors down to ppc2003 also has a sandbox and much finer grained security settings. I am not shure how effective these are and if security modell still exists in the current system.
I have an old motorola java-me phone that is quite secure because the manufacturer does not allow other apps to access sensitive functions as long as the app is not signed by motorola itself or one of its trust partners. There is no setting that allows me as the phone owner to disable this security. However other java-me-phone vendors have this option.


text:
Issue syncing Exchange 2003 account email after ICS update
After upgrading to ICS on my Samsung Galaxy S2, I no longed receive e-mail from one of the Exchange accounts configured in the stock e-mail app.
The Exchange 2010 account works fine. The Gmail account works fine as well. However, for the Exchange 2003 account, my phone only syncs the calendar. I receive no e-mail, although I am able to send e-mail from the same account. I have tried removing and adding the account, with no luck. I have also tried to change from Manual to Push notifications. No luck.
Could this be related to the security profile? Any way that I can force an update of this profile?


text:
How can I sync iTunes with a Galaxy Nexus
How can I sync my music from iTunes onto my Galaxy Nexus? How-To Geek has a good article about using Salling Media Sync, but apparently the Galaxy Nexus isn't supported because it only shows up as a MTP device in Windows.
Also I'm outside the US so I can't use Google Music (no sure if that would even help though because I don't have access to it! :-o).

Thanks in advance!

Possible duplicate: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/1351/android-and-itunes

Not voting to close because this question is slightly different since it's applicable to GNex and other phones that only show up as MTP devices.

@AlEverett Google Music isn't an option because I don't live in the US: "We're sorry. The Google Play music player is currently only available in the United States." :(

Try isyncr. They have a wifi add on also.

There are many 3rd-party apps in the Play Store that claim to be able to sync with iTunes: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=itunes+sync&c=apps&price=1

@Chahk The point is Wi-Fi sync..

@SachinShekhar: It's a nice feature, but the OP doesn't mention wifi in the question anywhere.

@eldarerathis Haven't you read this in question: it only shows up as a MTP device in Windows.? Without Wi-fi, he is out of option..

@SachinShekhar: Is he? I have no idea if something like Double Twist/isyncr/et al will work on a device that uses MTP (I don't use iTunes) so the wifi part wasn't really implied to me.

@eldarerathis Reasoning is simple: When you use USB for syncing (using any app), device must be in mass storage mode (MTP mode is used by Kies type software). His mass storage option is not working, so he can't use USB for syncing. And, Bluetooth/NFC/IR etc. based sync isn't practical. So, wi-fi sync is last option..

You can also try Double Twist.

...with its Air Twist add-on.

iSyncr works over USB (Mass Storage or MTP), Mac or PC, and also works over WiFi. It handles the Galaxy Nexus just fine.
In full disclosure, I am the developer.


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Is there a way to check who is connected to my Galaxy Nexus hotspot
I would like to be able to check who is using my phones hotspot, it was simple on my Droid 2 since the Motorola app much like the one shown in the answer to How do I check who is connecting to my hotspot? however I don't see a version of this screen with the galaxy nexus.
Update:
Looking for a non-root solution


text:
My HTC sense won't turn on at all and it was fully charged.
I just called someone less than 5 minutes ago, sat my phone down, and now it will not turn on. I charged it, took the back off, put it back on, and nothing worked.

Did you take the battery out?  I'd take it out, let it sit for an hour, then put it back in and try again.  Can you also clarify what phone you have?  Sense is the UI, not the device.

Follow Matthew's advice, take the battery out and charge it for a few hours, before turning it back on again. The phone might be freezing and the screen is unresponsive. If it still doesn't work, check if the phone is still in warranty.

Take the battery out, put it back again and boot in recovery mode. To do that, press the Volume Down key and Power button simultaneously until recovery boots. Then there should be an option to reboot. Select this option. Your phone should turn on. If not take it to a service center or wipe data/factory reset from the recovery menu.


text:
Why is my Galaxy S notifying me about a new message when my inbox is empty?
My Galaxy S keeps telling me I have a text message. I have erased my entire inbox but the notification won't go away. How do I make this notification stop?

What kind of message? An email? A text message? Better: what app are you seeing this in? Also, note that the Motorola Droid (which you tagged this with) is very different from a Galaxy S.

a text message. and yes I have to edit that. can you fix it???

Tap the notification once... you'll not get that again..


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Google IO Galaxy Tab 10.1 refuses to power on, any hope of revival?
This is one of the some thousand limited edition Google IO handout Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 devices. Was known working for quite some time, and susceptible to the "sleep of death" that left it not powering on until you long press the power button while touching the screen.
Device has never been rooted, used only lightly, never dropped, everything points to a simple software/firmware problem (doesn't even have the screen glue problem like others in its batch). Charging cable works (and has worked in the past), device "should" be charged (left plugged in overnight), though they designed it without any hardware indicators of charge status.
Things I've tried that numerous forums like XDA and android Forums recommended (but do nothing):

Hold power button for 30 seconds
Hold power button for 30 seconds and touch/wiggle finger on screen (used to help, no longer does anything)
Hold power and up/down volume alternatively (or any combination thereof)

At this point, this is theoretically just an expensive paperweight, therefore I am quite willing to do damage to it to get it working again, or simply use it as parts. This must be a "simple" firmware problem, so I feel that I shouldn't have to take a spadger to it and wrench out the battery or solder in a debug cable just to get it to do something.
Any ideas?
EDIT:
To note, on neither Windows or Linux does any device show up or get mounted when the device is plugged in during any of the procedures mentioned above. Nvflash sees nothing.
EDIT 2:
To those reading unfamiliar with the Galaxy Tab 10.1, it seems to be a mostly poorly designed device with only three physical buttons (Power, Volume Up/Down), and possibly zero indicator lights. This makes the number of options left for the consumer to debug it next to nil. I'll wait a week, and unless anyone has a better idea, I'm literally cracking the sucker open and physically removing the battery.
EDIT 3:
Okay Android peeps, I couldn't wait any longer and went ahead and cracked the sucker open. They were right, the back plastic is very delicate (and snapped in two places, purely cosmetic though). It's fairly tidy inside, and the battery and guts are easily exposed. My attempt to read the voltage of the battery revealed it to be.. basically dead. No real voltage at all. My best guess at this point is that somehow the charging circuitry requires some kind of minimum current available in the battery before it will attempt to charge it (or perhaps enough to boot and allow the software to handle it). Seems pretty stupid to me. If I can get my hands on a replacement battery, or a something to charge the existing battery directly, OR a wall wart to provide the 3.7 volts directly, I will try that.
Other than that, looks like I'm totally SOL and I'd have better luck posting into the Hack-a-day QA forums than a respectable software specific support forums like Android Enthusiasts. Thanks again guys! Maybe I'll be back again later for assistance getting Ubuntu installed on my Droid 1.
FINAL EDIT!:
After a quick jaunt over to Hackaday, I got some confirmation that the actual read voltage across my battery terminals was BELOW the minimum for Li-Ion, so they battery was basically dead. Another quick run to ebay found me a "new" one for ~$35. 5 days later and I shoehorned the new battery in and tada! It works! .. sort of.
Due to the undue stress of being discharged (or perhaps being so lonely), the boot process was broken and it was stuck in an endless boot loop. AFter about 4 hours messing with it trying this method to do fastboot and user wipe, but finding out that windows failed to recognize the it as anything but "Unkown Device", after another 2 hours of hacking around i come to find out it's my horrible cheap chinese knockoff cable that's the culprit!!
Found the original cable, plugged it in, fastboot works, try to wipe with fastboot -w, just hangs. Fooey. Next I follow this unbrick method using the odin download to flash a "Stock" rom. This works! Yay!!! Unfortunately it's back to android 3.2... but I can't complain, as I am now the proud owner of a $35 (+ 10 hours of work) android tablet.
What an adventure. Hopefully this log will help someone else along the way in their own tablet adventure.

Final Answer (to wrap up the question) [short version]: Battery was utterly dead, when popped open and measured at the tabs, voltage was under the safe minimum. New battery ordered from eBay plugged in, tablet worked! Just had to to escape from a boot cycle of doom, root and install Cyanogenmod 9 alpha (of which there are numerous available tutorials for both of these around the web)

I remember reading where someone had a similar problem with his Droid X (software failure, and the bootloader / recovery mode doesn't charge the battery), so he provided the voltage directly long enough to flash / boot normally, then reconnected the charger and battery.
If you can at least get it into the "device is off but charging the battery" mode, you should be fine from there.  Sorry I can't be more specific in regards to your specific tablet.

This probably would have worked, assuming the battery could actually be charged again (which it can't according to this great walkthrough), though the galaxy tab actually has TWO batteries that work in together, and I'd have to match the voltage exactly, and all this while risking killing the device. Only for the brave of heart and equipped with a really good bench power supply would I recommend it. It's probably be easier to charge the battery itself at that point (though I don't recommend that either.. fire danger!)

My wife and I each have a Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone and I've seen this exact issue from both of our phones.  The devices can get into this bizarre state where they have a dead battery, yet won't charge when plugged into a charger.  On our phones the solution is to remove the battery, wait a few minutes, then insert the battery and apply power from a charger.  From there we get the battery charging icon without the device powering up.  Have you tried disconnecting the batter from the rest of the tablet? There is an image here showing which connector to pull:
Disconnect battery on Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
Also, some devices can power up with the battery disconnected and only connected to wall power.  I'm not sure if the Galaxy Tab 10.1 behaves in this way, but since you've already cracked the case it is worth a shot.

Nope, no help there. The design is such that the battery is 100% required. I know I would never design such a device to be so dependent on what amounts to basically a car tire that will eventually wear out or go flat, not to mention to lock it behind a non-user serviceable area. Sheesh! if you can't open it, you don't own it.

Prolog:
I faced a similar problem of a seemingly hard-bricked Samsung Galaxy Tab (not sure which model; a rather modern one).
When reading xda-developers on this matter, among many discussions of this topic, I stumbled upon an article which was slightly off-topic, but still interesting for me to look through it: it dealt with modifying the hardware at home (jumpers, soldering), so that it becomes like a "developer board" (used at Samsung), with more special modes of operation (here: unbrickable mod).
And it said under "Special instructions":
A potential solution:

The normal battery charging sequence [after the modification] can be activated by holding power for 4 seconds, then plugging in the device

I had the crazy idea to try this on the dead device, although this wasn't advertised as a method to unbrick the normal, unmodified Galaxy Tab hardware.
(No other method had worked, like charging for many hours, or pressing various button combinations.)
My story:
So I pressed the power button, held it for at least 4 secs, and then without releasing it, plugged the charger into the tab.
And it powered on!
(It was 100% charged.)
I thought about this in the following way: some error occured in the powering-on-and-charging circuit, and the described trick reset it, and forced a normal mode in it.
Epilog:
Perhaps, what did the trick was the other method mentioned here: to hold the power button, and touch the screen. I'm not sure.

I thought I would have to snap off the cover to do the battery thing, but then I found the original cable charger and within minutes after holding down power button and volume button up it booted up .  It is now charging nicely. I had been charging my tablet with a cheaper dollar store charger previously.  Try this before attempting to mess with the battery.

I've had this problem many times and also tried everything others post.  Heres what works for me: Plug your charger into a desktop I guess it reboots it I really don't know, all I know is it works.  I actually had to do it today, so I though I would post my fix. Good luck


text:
What are some uses for the HDMI port?
My MID came with an HDMI port and cable. I have not seen this on any other device. What are some uses for this?

SE doesn't do lists; see the [FAQ].  Lie's answer is good but if you're unsure of what HDMI is I recommend Wikipedia.

Generally for video out, you can connect them to your TV to get an even larger screen, for example, to watch videos. Or you might be able to use it for doing presentations on a projector, instead of using a laptop.


text:
Install Bash on rooted Kindle Fire
I just rooted my Kindle Fire and installed QuickSSHd, an SSH daemon app.
I can log in via SSH (using Putty in Windows 7) and become root, etc. It appears, however, that the only shell installed is sh which lacks many of the niceties of other shells like Bash.
So, is it possible to install Bash (or a Bash-like shell with more features than sh) on a Kindle Fire?

Looks like CM has bash, so you could flash it :P or maybe grab the binary and try it.

Is the /system filesystem writable (or can you remount it to that effect)? mksh works natively on Android. You can probably even just copy a binary over. Disclaimer: I’m the mksh maintainer.


text:
Why does the Yahoo Mail application for Android only show message snippets in search results?
When I do a search in the Yahoo Mail application and then open one of the search results, instead of seeing the entire message I only see a message snippet.
Is there a way to view the entire original email message?

I have the same problem. It's ridiculous.
I don't really have a solution, but here's my workaround: I forward the found email to myself. (Doing this, you still won't be able to read the message in the composition window!!)
So you'll be able to read the forwarded message only when it comes around in your inbox.
I really do hope they'll fix this.


text:
instant upload of camera pictures into Google picasaweb without Google+ app?
Is there any option to have instant upload of camera pictures into Google picasaweb without the Google+ app? I have an HTC Chacha 2.3.5 which runs short of memory (even when moving apps to SD), and I can't be bothered of having Google+ installed, but would like to keep the instant upload of camera pictures into Picasa. Right now the Camera app (HTC Version 2.6.2119262927.162876) in the phone can only do instant upload into Flickr or Facebook, but I would rather prefer have them in Picasa. Any ideas?

Just to clarify, you mean instant and automatic, that is, photo is uploaded as soon as you take picture?

Yes, I mean instant and automatic

There is an app for that.
PhotoSync (Sync to Picasa) automatically syncs local folder to Picasaweb, so you can select your camera folder. It's free and not so huge as G+ app. You can set your local folder and Picasa folder and sync them on eg. hourly basis.

I agree with Tschareck and with @louielouie (below) - a separate app is required, you cannot modify the behavior of HTC's software AFAIK. The choice, then, would be which app suits your needs while taking up the least space.

I would bite the bullet and install the Google+ app.
In addition to Instant Upload, the Google+ app will give you unlimited storage of the photos that are uploaded via Instant Upload:

All photos uploaded in Google+ will be automatically resized to 2048 pixels (on their longest edge) and won't count towards your free storage quota.

Source: http://support.google.com/picasa/bin/http://picasa.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1224181
I don't think you have to use Google+ other than register online and install the app for this to happen, so there's really not much effort on your part needed to get the benefits of Instant Upload.
You can also manually "share" photos from the Gallery app to Picasa, but that's more tedious.


text:
Manually Sync Outlook 2010 contacts/calendar only from Windows PC to Android cell phone (Samsung Galaxy S II) via USB cord only
How do I manually Sync Outlook 2010 contacts and calendar only from Windows PC to Android cell phone (Samsung Galaxy S II) via USB cord only. I do NOT want to use any kind of web based product, i.e. Google, nor pay 3rd party software program to do this, unless I have to. I don’t want automatic syncing; I just want control of my data by plugging my cell into my computer via USB cord and manually hitting sync.  If I make a change to contacts or calendar on my cell, when I plug it into my computer it transfers data and vice versa without it cutting off data in the notes of contacts or anywhere else because web based products only allow a certain amount of data to transfer. Also, what applications do I need to have on my cell phone for the contacts and calendar to work? I use Gmail separately for my emails by going to Google, but do not want that on Outlook 2010. Also, NO I will not give up Outlook.

If you don't want to use third party software then you need to use Samsung's Kies.  It says here that it supports syncing with Outlook, though I don't know the details.


text:
non-wipe non-unlock root for Android 2.3.3
I have a Nexus S running Android 2.3.3.
IIRC on old android version such as this there were non-wipe non-unlock methods to obtain root anyway, however I wasn't able to find them right now.
Can this be done?

I think Gingerbreak was the main root method, which is (IIRC) what SuperOneClick uses. That might be a good one to start with if you haven't tried it yet, but I'm not positive that it will work.

@eldarerathis: gingerbreak worked. Unfortunately, I lost root upgrading to 2.3.6. Still, since it worked, if you post it as an answer I'll accept it.

Android 2.3.3 was (on all devices I'm aware of) vulnerable to the Gingerbreak exploit, which used a software hole in Android to gain root permission and therefore doesn't require wiping your device. SuperOneClick provides this as one of its root methods, making it a popular choice for rooting versions 2.3 to 2.3.3 of Gingerbread.


text:
Samsung Galaxy S 2 - Recovery mode
I am trying to install an application to my Galaxy S 2 using the "apply update from sdcard" option from the recovery mode (the script in the update.zip is written to do that). The problem I am facing is that when I choose that option, I can't see my external sdcard (where update.zip resides).
Anyone can help with that please ??

Take it off your external card and put it on the internal SD storage which is located at /sdcard.  Confusing, I know, but that's how Samsung has decided to do things.


text:
Download files with Chrome for Android
Is there a way to download media files directly from the Chrome browser? In the stock Android browser I can long-click a link and select "Save link" to accomplish that, but Chrome doesn't offer that option and opens a media player instead.

In Chrome, keep your finger pressed on the link, and you will see an option "Save Link".
Hence, the file(s) will be saved in the Downloads folder.
To access it and (perhaps) other folders in the future, I recommend downloading a File Management app.
The best ones are said to be ES File Manager and ASTRO File Manager.
While generally, ASTRO is said to be better, the free version has ads.
Your choice!

The option 'Save link' doesn't appear in the context menu.

Solution found here.

Click on the link and close that tab or go back once it tries to play that media.  Go to your chrome history from the menu and long press the link and save it.

Very helpful indeed! +1

Chrome on Android has the "save link" now when long pressing on files (such as media) which when just pressed regularly play the content.
the funny thing was that I thought save link would have copied the url or created a bookmark, not download the file...so your question text helped me :)

Download an app named Turbo Download Manager.
With one click on the file in Chrome, the option comes for this app. Thus, it downloads the files required.


text:
Add New Ringtones, Notifications and Alarm tones on Nexus One
I have music (MP3 files) on my SD card and am trying to set them as ringtones, notification tones and alarm tones on my Nexus One.
My phone only lets me select the stock ringtones, notifications or alarms. I tried to transfer  and copy the music files to the ringtones and notification folder on my phone but it fails every time.  I think those folders are write protected or something.
Can anyone help? I have searched at all possible solutions online.  Some solutions suggest copying the files using my PC to my phone's ringtones/notification tones folder, but I can't even see these folders on Windows Explorer.  It's like they are invisible.
Can anyone help?

There are special directories you can use to store your custom "noises". The "starting point" (root-of-noises-dir) may be different between devices (so this is rather a generic answer, as I do not own all of them) -- pick one and check if it works, if not, pick the next:
/sdcard/media/audio
/sdcard/media
/sdcard

In there, put the directories for the specific events:
┌───────────────┬───────────────────────┐
| directory     | description           |
├───────────────┼───────────────────────┤
| alarms        | for your alarm clock  |
| notifications | for... notifications? |
| ringtones     | for incoming calls    |
| ui            | keyboard click etc.   |
└───────────────┴───────────────────────┘

Then place your sound files into the appropriate directories. Done. Now you should be able to pick them in your configuration(s).

The app Rings Extended combined with any free file manager will do what you want. Once installed, picking a ringtone will pop up a window asking which app to use for ringtone selection.  Tick the option to make it a default and choose "Rings Extended".  It will then allow you to pick any supported music file from your SD card for ring and notification tones.

Thank you so much for this.  I've installed it and it works perfectly. Exactly what I need without having to hack my phone...!

@dizzyhytes: If this answer really solved your problem, you should "accept" it so that future readers can benefit. Please see the [FAQ] to learn more about how the site works.

I have had luck on CyanogenMod 6 by making a folder called "Ringtones" on my sd card and putting files there. However this may be CyanogenMod specific. (You may need to reboot or trigger the media scanner to get the files to show up.)

That's how I did it as well, and I'm not using Cyanogen, just the "pure" ICS of the Nexus S. Besides Ringtones, I created Notifications and Alarms. I believe this feature works on all Android devices.

I had assumed that such a simple but poorly documented feature was something the CM folks would do. ;)


text:
Why does the ICS dialer have letters next to the numbers?
It would make sense if it had T9 built in, but it doesn't. So why?
They should really implement that btw. I know it exists in custom roms.

You might also find this of interest.

The word of the day is "skeuomorph."

I would assume it's because there are still phone numbers that are distributed with convenience letters (e.g. "phonewords") in them, and there are probably still automated call answering programs that use them. The letters on the numpad far predate T9.
For the US specifically, Wikipedia also has an article that explains the history of telephone numbers and the various ways that letters have been used over time (it was different in other countries, but I can't find a detailed article for that at the moment).

Alright, but it still doesn't make sense, because i can't seem to be able to type with the letters anyway. I tried long pressing and everything, but nothing happens. Thanks for the answer though!

@qwerty: Well what I'm saying with my answer is that it has nothing to do with typing. It's for dialing phone numbers with letters in them, since otherwise you'd have to memorize where all of the letters are (or get the number without letters in it).

Yes, i see what you're saying, but what i mean is that you can't actually use the letters. There's no way to type the letters out, you can only use the numbers. See what i mean?

@qwerty in American ads (and probably other countries) you will something like call 401-buynow, so what you will do is just press the number that corresponds to the letter in this case 401-289669

They're also useful as a mnemonic for some voice-prompt systems. (I know "3" deletes a voicemail message at work, because that's the button for "D".)

You can search your contacts easily by "typing letters".
The dialer instantly interprets the input phone number also as text input (just like T9 does) and shows contacts that match below the actual number.
For example if you want to dial Smith you should dial 76484.
No need to press 4 three times to get "I".


text:
Galaxy s2 will not boot, wrong bootloader
My Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-I1900 won't boot.

I tried to update to ICS with Kies which crashed, wherefore I unplugged the USB to start over.
Now my phone had no OS, and wouldn't respond to Kies anymore.
By mistake I flashed the downloaded original firmware into the bootloader section in Odin.
Now it just shows a screen that says Samsung Galaxy SII GT-I9100
Next I tried to recover with Odin. I flashed another firmware, and the old bootloader and attached a PIT file which worked for me earlier.

I want to now how I can make it work again. I have been looking for days for the following files:

Original .PIT file
Original Firmware
Original Bootloader

What should I do? I am using Odin v1.85.

Its a lesson why you should always keep Nandroid backups..

i dont think nandroid will help anyhow. ODIN will be the only hope, really. This might be the files you need.

Thanks Ryan, my problem is that i need a bootloader file... I, by mistake, replaced the original bootloader with the firmware... Now it will not boot.. I was not able to download the second file...When i try to wipe data/factory reset it says that it cannot access to '/system/csc/HTD/system'.

How did you manage to flash it over the bootloader?  Did you load it in the wrong field in Odin?

@Ryan see he is able to access recovery... means, nandroid backup could have helped..

@MatthewRead Yep, i mistakenly loaded the firmware into the bootloader section... Can it be fixed if i access a nandroidbackup from another galaxy s2?

Nope.  You'll need to flash a dump of the bootloader and hope it works, and then probably re-flash a ROM.  You can get the bootloader here among other places but I've verified that one. @SachinShekhar Nandroid doesn't back up or flash the bootloader.

@Matthew A full Nandroid backup saves entire ROM.. which indeed contains bootloader..

Thanks alot @MatthewRead, Now i have downloaded the file, i will try in a moment...

@SachinShekhar As the noob i am: Where will i find a fully functional and original ROM, and how should i download to my phone?

It seems that something is missing...
When i am trying to wipe data/ factory reset, it says that it cannot acces '/system/csc/HTD/system/'
What does that mean and how do i solve it :D

Go to samfirmware
Get your original firmware from there and keep the selected file in PDA option in Odin.
Do not tick any other option; just put your handset into 'Download Mode' and connect it to pc.
When Odin displays 'CONNECT', click on 'Start' and wait until it starts flashing then; you will be able to use your phone.

-1 from me for the poor lazy answer in which I had to take the trouble in re-editing it to make it more natural for others to follow. In future - please refrain from using text speak, don't care if you're on the phone answering this


text:
How do I force the ICS browser to finish syncing bookmarks?
I have a brand new Acer A200, and I upgraded it to ICS (4.0.3). I set up sync with my Chrome bookmarks, but it's been a few hours now and it doesn't seem to be finishing the sync - I've got the complete folder structure of the bookmarks on my PCs, but most of the folders are empty. Is there anything that I can do to force it to finish the job?

I seem to recall that taking a long time, too.  Eventually it worked; but then it started showing a "sync error".  I simply disabled Browser, and am instead using https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.android.chrome which works surprisingly well. It also seems to sync more bookmarks than the stock Browser did.

Well, for the moment I'm not coming up with any solution, so I've up and bought ChromeMarks. I went for the pay version because I REALLY wanted to manipulate the bookmarks on the device. If you just need to see them on the device, then the free version (ChromeMarks Lite) does a fine job.
I have no idea what the real problem was, but it was worth $1.99 to me to have it solved immediately (especially since the Browser's built-in bookmarks can't be viewed in any kind of list mode - just the icon view).


text:
Galaxy Tab 10.1 doesn't keep wifi connected despite settings
My Galaxy Tab 10.1, 16GB Wifi only version, disconnects the WiFi whenever the tablet goes into sleep mode.
I have ensured that I have selected to never sleep in advanced WiFi settings.
I downloaded and experimented with the Wifi Keep Alive and REGPON wifi KeepAlive apps, but they have had no effect.
I even tried rooting the device, and put on this ROM, in hopes that maybe some change would take effect, but it hasn't.
Is this a known issue with the Galaxy Tab 10.1? I've done some Google searching and I've seen other people report it, but most fixes seem to just describe how to go into the advanced settings and enable "never" as an option.
Is there any kind of fix I can apply?
This is a somewhat critical feature for me, as I intend to be able to receive Skype calls, which can't be done if the WiFi disconnects.

Does this happen when it's been asleep for a specific period of time (i.e just a few seconds or several hours)? Also, does this happen on every WiFi AP you connect to?

Changing the network connection from DHCP to a static IP address has resulted in connection stability.
(I can't reclaim my own bounty, and it would be a shame for all that rep to simply disappear, so, someone can still claim it by providing an answer that is informative and helpful in some other regard. Ideally a solution that doesn't require using static IP, but also maybe information on why DHCP is unreliable, or even just alternate workarounds that are equally effective. Or something else entirely.)

In a nutshell: using a static IP is like owning a house.  Having a DHCP lease is like renting, but you may have to move when the lease is up.  Unfortunately, the Tab's implementation is like a renter who leaves, then tries to get back into his old apartment (which in this analogy is a dynamically assigned IP address on your WiFi network) and finds it locked.  Instead of asking for a new lease, it just keeps knocking on the door, never to enter.  In this case, it means that your Tab won't connect to your WiFi network on wake.
The detailed explanation: It looks like Samsung's implementation of DHCP lease renewal is at fault here.  When a device wakes up and then tries to connect to WiFi, it will ask for a DHCP lease (if expired), which also gives it a dynamically assigned IP address.  This works fine when the Tab first connects.  However it looks like it never asks for a new lease and thus new IP address.  Instead it caches the IP address and keeps trying to reuse it.  DHCP is dynamic so it means that any particular device on the network cannot rely on a specific IP.  So eventually the lease will expire and/or the IP address that the Tab is using gets reassigned to another device.  When this happens, your Tab cannot connect to WiFi.
So the solution is to assign static IP until the Tab's implementation of DHCP lease renewal is fixed.
An alternative solution is to root your device.  Then you can manually delete the cached file which contains the stale IP address following the instructions at: http://steve-shaffer.com/2011/02/samsung-galaxy-tab-wifi/ (where I learned about some of these details as well).  This will cause the Tab to renew the DHCP lease properly and live in a brand new and shiny dynamically assigned apartment on your WiFi network.

Not sure what the problem really is, but this worked for me:

Use static IP for the TAB from your router
Remove all files in TAB under folder /data/misc/dhcp. This step requires root access, then the files can be removed with ES File Explorer

I have tried everything on many forums to address this wifi connection problem. My daughter finally said to me "maybe it's the browser". I downloaded Firefox, and voila! no more problems. I am very very low tech and barely know what most of these terms mean (IP,DHCP,access point?). But I DO know how to download an app and that's what did the trick. Simple. Apparently the browser that comes with the tablet sucks.

not sure how installing another browser on a device solves wifi connection issue! this post is more suitable as a comment below the question, IMHO

Something else that owners of these models may experience, worth adding here.
Quick specs on my issue: Android 4.4.2, KitKat, July 2014 kernel, T5200XXUANG1 build (Australian); I put that in this post in case it ever helps anyone visiting the forums. Again, this is a Samsung Galaxy TabPro 10.1, model SM-T520.
My unit would only barely pick up my home router & Galaxy S5 phone wifi hotspot. It was also not picking up any nearby neighborhood wireless router & there are a ton of them. Since I hadn't removed the back yet & thought perhaps unplugging battery from motherboard may help, opened back & EUREKA! The actual physical wifi card cable was UNPLUGGED! Unclear how that would have happened but now I know why it was in such good shape & the eBay seller was letting it go so cheap.
So, certainly remove the back cover & physically inspect the unit. Amazingly, it's not always the OS, software, or router settings to blame.

I'm having this issue with a captivate running CM9.  It only happens on certain networks.  I can't attribute it to DHCP/Static since thats IP and it runs higher in the stack than the physical connection.  Only guess is with static IP the device isn't entering low power state on the wifi chip, where with DHCP it may allow that.
I've got some access points that show me connected clients, active, inactive, or inactive standby.  Certain access points/routers may disconnect clients that don't respond frequently enough (in standby state).
My ubiquiti unifi access points don't disconnect my phone when in standby, my ubiquiti pico2 access points do.  Linksys WRT54G does disco in standby, while my Motorola eXtreme Docsis 3.0/Wireless Router at home does not.  It is consistent in each location, so I attribute it more to the access point actively dropping a standby connection versus it being something wrong with the phone.

I as well have the stealth trio 10.1 and i as well kept getting dropped off my wifi so i connected my trio to my computer and kept usb off then i had to go in to my router settings go to wifi protected set up and then i had to go to my trio go to settings and then go to wifi and then there is three little grey dots on the top right corner put your finger on the tree squares you see and slide your finger down you will see three options scan,.............. wps pin entry,............... advanced, you want to press on ..........wps pin entry.......... and you will see an 8 digit pin after obtaining that pin go to your wifi security on your router page and put those numbers in the empty box and then press enroll and just below that you will see a button that says start pbc press on the pbc button and your trio should now say connecting to wifi and it will tell you if you succeeded in connecting your device........... .this is also known as pushing the wifi. let me be clear on one thing my router is a Belkin router so if you router is a different type of router you setting my be different so dont forget to call tech support for your router if you are having trouble with this set up its worth the effort.

That's a wall of text, and hardly readable (I gave up at line 3). Mind to [edit] your answer and apply some formatting, so it becomes readable? Thanks!

In Settings - WiFi - Advanced - Turn off "Always allow scanning" option.
It worked for me, WiFi is now stable.


text:
Why can't apps connect to the internet?
Running on both WiFi and mobile connection, the browser can connect to the internet ok but apps can not connect.
What can cause this?
Samsung Galaxy S

Is your phone rooted?

What's your ROM? Have you ever installed Firewall? Or, activated firewall feature of Avast! Mobile Security?

@Sergiy - No phone isn't rooted.

@Sachin - No. No firewalls or security apps installed. Thought it might be a APN issue at first but had same issues on WiFi.

If an app can't connect check first the app's permission in settings/restrict data usage

Sometimes the culprit is much easier to solve: If accessing secured websites (https:) via the browser fails as well, make sure your date/time settings are correct -- otherwise certificates will fail. Best explained using an example:
Say, today the date is May 28th 2013 -- but your device's date/time is set to January 1st 2010. Now you visit a secure website, which is using a certificate issued on June 1st 2012 -- valid vor 2 years. Your browser won't accept that certificate, as it must assume it's a fake -- issued in the future. Same would apply if your browser's date were set too far in the future, e.g. December 31st 2014: the certificate would look "expired" to the browser, which again would not accept it.
Same applies to your apps, which often use a secured connection (hopefully!). Just unsecure connections (not using certificates) would work fine -- which explains why your browsers work on many sites.

this is the correct answer

This seems to be a software problem. Try a hard reset - that should restore connectivity. Note that this will delete all your data, so back it up first. When installing apps back try to check connectivity after each new installation - in this way you'll be able to determine what causes the problem.
Also as a random guess - do you use a proxy that only permits web-pages (only HTTP protocol)? That would explain why your browser works, but apps do not (they often use other protocols than HTTP).

When you say "hard reset" do you mean "factory reset"?   A hard reset means to turn off and on again, which will not delete any data.

Yes. I meant "factory reset".

this is an infeasible solution

it is feasible when all else fails... although I admit it's time-consuming

Disabling the 'data connection' and then enabling it solved my problem. You should try it. You can alternatively try toggling the airplane mode (or use a widget) that should also enable and disable the data connection (both WiFi/data).


text:
What kind of upgrade procedure can I expect after rooting my tablet?
I am considering rooting my Galaxy Tab 10.1, mainly to get rid of some obnoxious bloatware that really annoys me.
I've read this post, and this one, and found these instructions which are nice and clear. I think I'm set as far as executing on this process.
What is not clear to me is down the road, when new versions come out, what the upgrade process will look like.

Will I be notified in any way shape or form of any upgrades? (my
current non-rooted phone alerts me when a new OS upgrade is
available.)
Will I have to go through an equally complicated procedure with
every upgrade, or is it much simpler once the initial rooting is
done?

Most (if not all) custom ROMs deliberately prevent over-the-air updates from carriers/manufacturers.  This is done both to prevent incompatibilities during the upgrade process, and to avoid losing root.  With that said, some custom ROMs do offer ways to be notified of updates.  For example, for ROMs that are integrated with Rom Manager update notifications are available through that app (available for the Premium version only though.)  Other ROMs may even include their own update notification built-in.  This is really up to the developer of a given ROM, and you should be able to find this information on the ROM's support thread.
After the initial rooting and installation procedure, upgrading a ROM to a newer version is quite easy:

Download ROM's update.zip file and place it on the root of your SD Card.
Reboot device to Recovery (ClockworkMod in this case.)
Perform a Nandroid backup.  This step is not strictly necessary, but highly recommended in case something goes wrong during the update process, or if you just aren't happy with a new version.  If that happens you can always restore a previous backup to get your device back to a fully functional version.
Clear Cache and Dalvik-cache partitions.  Again, not really necessary, but in some cases this helps prevent issues with installed 3rd-party (and system) apps in case the updated ROM changes things around too much.
Apply the update.  Pick the ZIP file you downloaded in step 1 and wait for the update to complete.
Flash the GApps package.  Optional, if you want the Play Store, Google Talk and other Google experience apps.  You have to do this step each time you upgrade the ROM, since the /system partition gets formatted as part of the update process.
Reboot.

The first boot after ROM update will take a long time (5+ minutes,) depending on how many apps you have installed.  This is because the Dalvik-cache gets gets rebuilt.  After this you should be all set.