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Why do Android phones have more cores than computers?
Laptops have usually at most four cores, and dualcores are probably more common. I have recently switched from quadcore to dualcore and I can confirm there is a limited number of usecases for quadcore, even with CPU intensive tasks.
On the other hands, at mobile phones, quadcores, hexacores and octacores seem to be common. Why? What tasks can utilize them?
I understand that big.LITTLE can be a part of the answer. That is, the main benefit of so many cores is not the ability to use all of them simultaneously, but rather using a core with power consumption appropriate for the current workload. However, for example, the Snapdragon 625 has eight Cortex-A53 cores, which does not seem to be a case for big.LITTLE.
Maybe the ARM architecture has a lower point of optimal performance per watt. That is, having a single core tuned for optimal performance per watt results in a lower performance on ARM than on Intel. So, more cores are used in order to deliver the performance. This is just a hypothesis.
But even in this case, I don't see what workload can efficiently use, say, eight cores on a mobile phone. On laptops, I can imagine a few like full (non-incremental) compilation of a project. But on phones?

Games can be performance-hungry, but they usually require GPU performance rather than CPU, don't they?
Theoretically, multiple cores could speed up Android Lollipop/Marshmallow AOT compilation when installing or when upgrading (i.e., the phase “Optimizing apps 3/121”). I am, however, not sure if this can utilize multiple cores. As far as I remember the code, only one app is being compiled at a time, but maybe there is some parallelism within the compilation process itself.
Also Android 7+ could utilize multiple cores when compiling. But since it reportedly compiles when idle and charging, the benefit seems to be rather minimal. At least when one charges the phone overnight – I really don't care if it takes 30minutes or two hours in such a scenario.

As I pointed out in my answer, keep in mind that you seems to be looking at things upside down. Many core/parallel execution is the norm, is not your phone which is an anomaly for having many core, it's the PC CPU which is an anomaly.

Your question is flawed, PCs can have more cores than phones. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/processors/core/x-series/i9-7900x.html And that's not even getting into server-class machines, which can have dozens or even hundreds of cores. (And some supercomputers get into the thousands-of-cores range.)

@JAB Sure, but I'm not talking about maximum number of cores, rather about typical number. For laptops, more than quadcores are pretty uncommon, but you could find some exception, maybe with Xeon. For mobile phones, even octacores seem to be relatively common.

"I have recently switched from quadcore to dualcore and I can confirm there is a limited number of usecases for quadcore, even with CPU intensive tasks." - Can you expand and elaborate on how you came to that conclusion?

@Abdul It comes mostly from my observations (seeing system load using htop or a similar tool) and partially from my conclusions. Even some taksk where I would expect parallelization (e.g., rendering using OpenScad) are single-core. Firefox (ESR) usually consumes at most one core. Incremental compilation – I haven't measured it, but intuitively, there is not much opportunities for finding independent tasks. (Full compilation is a different case.)

Note that FF can make use of multiple cores. Open about:config and check the entry Multiprocess Windows. In my case says 0/1 (Disabled by add-ons) but if I disable the offending add-ons it'll be active.

@Daniel Maybe it is there in newer versions, I have 45 ESR. Anyway, this will allow usage of multiple cores for multiple pages (and maybe pages are grouped in processes by domain, I think), not using multiple cores for one page. But maybe even this will come, as experiments with Servo suggest.

See That eight-core smartphone isn’t as fast as you think it is and the linked paper therein.

As you've already noted, the big.LITTLE combination strategy (technically, HMP, Heterogeneous Multi-Processing clusters) is the primary reason for so many (and sometimes overwhelmingly many) cores. A mobile device often runs into multiple scenarios, both heavy load and light load ones included.
An extreme consumer-class example is MediaTek's Helio X20, which has 2 performance-oriented A72 cores, 4 balanced A53 cores, plus 4 energy-efficient A35 cores. That's very flexible throughout different usage cases. However, I think 8 cores 2 clusters is usually enough.
There's also another desktop-like example, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 series (S 800, S 801, and S 805). There are only 4 cores of the same microarchitecture in each SoC, with 2 clocked higher and 2 clocked lower. Qualcomm made these SoCs because they were very confident of their own microarchitecture (Krait 400 and Krait 450).
For games, even if they seemingly demand GPU performance rather than CPU, they still put a heavy load on the CPU. A GPU cannot work alone without something else supplying it with data to be processed, and that's one of the major jobs that the CPU is doing while you're gaming. In most gaming cases, the GPU only renders graphics, while all other jobs like loading data, resources and assets, and calculating in-game mechanics like the system, environment and physics are done by the  CPU. You won't observe a higher frame rate if you upgrade your GPU while sticking to a low-end CPU.
A secondary reason is how Android utilizes CPU resources. Android pretty much makes their own application environment. It uses nothing but codes (and APIs) from Java, but it has its own virtual machine named Dalvik, which was later replaced by ART (API Level 21). APKs have their executable codes in a "neutral" format, much like .class files in Java. Before they're run, the codes get compiled once more into the machine's native instructions[1]. The compilation process is multi-threaded and can utilize multi-cores for a performance boost.
And when an app is running, there are several other processes and mechanics (like the Garbage Collector) that run alongside, or parallel to the app. More cores can let the supportive processes run more efficiently, as well as the main app.
1. If you use a file type identifier, you'll find that "optimized" dex files are in ELF format, while the "neutral" dex files are just in a format of their own.
Another lesser reason is that ARM cores can't work as fast as an Intel x86 chip. The Intel x86 microarchitecture can be dated back to 1976, when the Intel 8086 chip started to be designed, which means that the x86 has developed over a long time. A single modern high-end ARM Cortex-A73 core is only as powerful as an Intel Clarkdale core, taking Core i5-660 as an example (GeekBench, single-core). This is because x86 is a CISC microarchitecture while ARM is a RISC microarchitecture. You surely don't want a phone that becomes laggy with only two or so active apps. More cores will help relieve the pressure. That's why dual-core SoCs are relatively popular only on smart watches. Who needs performance on a smart watch?
Interestingly, more cores will result in less power than a single core at the same load. The relationship between CPU frequency and power consumption is more than linear, so twice the frequency will always result in demanding more than twice, or even 3x or 4x as much power, while delivering less than twice the performance (due to other resource limitations like cache). So 4 cores can easily beat a single core at the same load, providing better performance and simultaneously demanding less power.
Further Reading:

Why 8 and 10 CPU cores in smartphones are a good idea – a lesson from the kitchen
Why some phones have two quad core processors and some have similar clocked octa core. Which is better one in terms of performance?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

I remember reading or watching somewhere that the Linux kernel had originally worked on good multi-core support with a focus in supercomputers, many years ago, and these efforts proved useful "in the future" (now) for smartphones, like a kind of "accident"

This answer does not appear to actually answer the question, despite being accepted. This answer seems to be answering "Why might I want extra cores in my phone?" which is not the question at hand. It does not explain the difference between PC and Phone. The points given about why a phone may want more cores apply also to desktop computers, especially the points about gaming.

I have added the above comment back in after it got swept away with the moved-to-chat comments. My comment was not part of any "extended discussion" and was specifically about the integrity of the (non)answer at hand here. Were it actually answering the question, I would +1, but since it does not actually answer the question, it needs some appropriate content added.

The 1976 claim on x86 CPUs is somewhat misleading. ARM cores can be dated back to the Acorn RISC Machine project in 1983, only 7 years later, and in some ways being newer is an advantage, Acorn learned several things that were wrong with the development of x86 and similar CPU designs and incorporated that into ARM.

The main difference between the two now is that Intel has invested massive amounts in building CPUs that are as fast as possible to the exclusion of all else, whilst ARM focused of CPUs that are far more efficient, both in terms of power consumption per cycle, and cost.

Also RISC vs CISC has nothing to do with it, Intel CPUs run a RISCish core internally (uops). The real difference is out or order vs in order execution.

Video cards have thousands of cores. It's all up to what they are used for.

@user1937198 AFAIK there are both CPU types (in-order and out-of-order) for both ARM and x86/x64.

@Overmind Video cards are a quite different category (CPU cores are independent, the GPU “cores” you are talking about are in fact coupled threads) and designed for a quite different workload.

The x86 thing is quite ... wrong. They're superscalar chips, basic implementations would not do anywhere near as good as the classic RISC pipeline used in most ARM chips. It's also worth noting that linking cores together with super-scalar designs is VERY hard due to out of order execution and the cache hierarchy. No one knew what they were missing so there wasn't really demand for it. If you notice some of Intels newer iterations are not in the high core count chips - they're on Broadwell, this is because they discarded sync stuff - out of space.

Neither the x86 ISA nor JavaScript are intrinsically particularly suited to be fast - actually, in many respects its quite the opposite (e.g. on x86 complex, irregular instructions put pressure on the decoder, all the side effects make it hard to analyze dependencies and exploit instruction-level parallelism, having so few registers force spilling on stack; in JavaScript, having , dynamic typization and attribute lookup force many decisions to be delayed at run time).

Still, they are the fastest in their class for the same reason: some big company hired the best minds in their field and made them work hard on the problem; given enough R&D many design problems can be worked around, and the result can have better performance than designs that would be equivalent or better in their initial design.

The comment about Java is total irrelevant. Most serious compute performant apps don't use Java but native code via NDK: Games, Browser Engines, PDF renderers ... nobody is crazy enough to try this with java. Java on Android was intended what is scripting languages on desktop computers.

I was with you up through "This is because x86 is a CISC microarchitecture while ARM is a RISC microarchitecture", which has nothing to do with it. It's because the x86 throws hardware at identifying dependencies and feeding the instruction stream into multiple chip-specific pipelines as efficiently as possible -- where "as efficiently" means "to get through executing them"—with power saving a selectable secondary concern. The specific way the x86 does it is by decoding the CISC ISA to a RISC µISA and feeding that to a RISC core, then remapping the results to the CISC model on completion.

The reason is as simple as much as complicate.
The short answer is "because the mobile phone market has never been and is not driven by Intel".
The long answer is way too long to resume here, but the basic concept is that Intel has dominated the PC market for years with all means possible, to the point of paying and corrupting (and being fined for this) to have his CPUs be the first and only choice for PC manufacturers.
Having the total control of the market has allowed Intel to inflate the CPU prices while artificially deciding which features and how much processing power the users should have wanted, and if you analyse a bit Intel history you'll notice that its main strength is basically in the increase of CPUs frequency, so it mostly never tried to do something really smart or innovative; and it didn't need it, because it can just say to people "you don't need more cores, but I have this juicy new CPUs which runs 100 MHz faster". At the same time, it could sell multicore CPUs in the server market at absurdly high prices
(because servers have always needed tons of parallel power, to the point that there is a current trend in trying to realize servers that use...guess what? Hundred of your cheap phone CPUs working in parallel)
This, in turn, has reflected into the developers community which has never caught up with the importance of parallel programming, so that many if not most of the them never bothered using more than one thread at time -or, to express it in a non technical way, having their software do more than one task at time. Which, by the way, makes sense when 99% of your customers base has two cores at max. Sadly, this is had led to the legend that parallel algorithms are really difficult to implement and applies only to a small subset of problems.
Instead, finally, the mobile market has never seen Intel success; quite the contrary, actually, as it happens most of the time that Intel tries to do something different from the usual X86 architecture. So, lacking is influence and control of the market, the other CPUs producer have gone in the direction that has been the normality for ages outside the PC market: parallel computing.

Are you sure you're answering the right question?

@iBug Obviously, yes. If someone pick a white sheep and a blu sheep and ask "why the white sheep is not blu like all others shesp?" the problem the OP is facing is thinking that a white sheep is an exception, while the truth it's quite the contrary.

Hmm? I think you need more smarts to make a fast core than to make a slow core then Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V it. I remember reading about a interview where the were discussing lntel's difficulty in speeding up CPUs further and computer scientist said "I don't want more cores, I want faster cores", and the Intel guy said something like "Faster cores is what you want, but more cores is what you will get"

@iBug This answer applies to the OP's question better than the accepted answer. The accepted answer is the one that is not answering the right question.

"inflate the CPU prices artificially" -> If Intel was artificially inflating the prices, why their competition use similar priced hardware and why ARM powered computers suck so hard when compared to Intel hardware? This intel-hating is ridiculous. Making CPU's is hard. The thing that made ARM so popular among mobile devices was the big.LITTLE idea, something they conceived before Intel.

Also, I'm pretty sure it was Intel that started with the multicore thing at budget prices, with the Celeron D line. Your answer makes no sense.

Intel doesn't control the PC chip market and hasn't for many years.  And the reason chip designers shifted from faster clocks to more cores is that faster clocks were hitting some fundamental physical limitations.  More cores was a much harder problem to solve, so they put it off until it was the most cost effective way to keep increasing performance.

This answer is definitely about shesp.

This answer makes no sense. Intel is one of the chip makers in PCs. And the question is why phones have more cores than PCs. Not why phones have more cores than Intel PCs. This answer assumes Intel = PC, which is not the case.

This is more of a rant about evil Intel corporation, which IMO is not well-deserved since ARM screws independent chip makers with licenses just as well.

Intel has made shady deals that were exposed 20 years ago; at the time they had AMD and Cyrix and competitors and were trying to have a quasi monopoly.
They have some of the most advanced fabs you can find and the x86 series have been RISC cpu's internally for a long time with a decoder in front for the CISC instructions. You're giving a totally uneducated and uninformed opinion

I don't understand why this is getting so many positive responses; this doesn't answer the original question and is full of nonsense. Increasing single-thread performance has always been pursued because it easily speeds up everything. All the older single-threaded programs will get the free lunch, and multi-thread ones will benefit as well. We stopped increasing frequency because of physical limits - and even still, you need to be seriously deluded if you think that the only difference between a 486 and a Pentium 4 is the instruction clock - superscalar x86 processors are extremely ...

... complex beasts that manage to execute a legacy IA applying all kind of automagical optimizations (out of order execution/instruction-level parallelism, register renaming, branch prediction, all kind of caches, µops explosion/fusion) in an almost completely transparent manner. You simply cannot achieve this level of performance by just making a higher clocked 486. The claim that "parallel algorithms are really difficult to implement" is a legend is also completely bogus. Besides the so-called "embarrassingly parallel" problems, making parallel versions of algorithms is one of the hardest...

... challenges that we are facing, and in many cases (typically, when you need data from the previous stage of the algorithm to feed the next one) it just cannot be done, unless you have a neverending stream of data to elaborate, so you can pipeline. Besides, efficient and correct parallel programming when you have shared resource to juggle between multiple thread of execution is an extremely hard challenge on its own. Even Linus Torvalds warned against being too smart about inventing synchronization primitives, given that typically almost nobody gets it right.

There are two factors going on, one very practical and the other historical.
The practical reason is the use of mixed architectures in phones. Power consumption is critical for phones and phones spend a lot of time in modes where they require very little performance. It makes sense to have some cores optimized for minimal power consumption when little performance is needed while having some cores optimized to provide maximum performance when it's needed.
The other reason is largely historical. Until 2005 or so, desktop CPUs were all single cores. Improving desktop CPU performance consisted almost exclusively in making a core that can execute as many instructions per second as possible. Even today, so much desktop software cannot take full advantage of multiple cores that many would prefer a CPU with 4 cores over an 8 core CPU with cores 20% slower.
Getting as much performance out of a single core as possible requires huge amounts of CPU real estate. This is real estate that could otherwise be used to provide more cores. This is why Intel's newest Kaby Lake CPUs max out at 4 cores and people buy them because each core is faster than their predecessor's cores. For many, they are an upgrade even from CPUs with a higher core count.
Over time, expect to see much more desktop software fully optimized to support more cores. As that happens, the engineering tradeoffs will start to favor more cores over faster cores on desktops. While cores will almost certainly still get faster, you'll start to see people preferring an 8 core CPU over a 4 core CPU even if each core is 20% slower. Chip designers will follow the market.

It's crucial for a phone to be able to provide computational power in short bursts (we need certain apps to be fast) but to also avoid overheating (heat dissipation is much more difficult for phones than for laptops or PCs). In order to accomplish this, architects design phones to use a single core when the workload is light and provide extra cores to boost performance when it is needed. If phones were to use fewer large cores, overheating would become a problem even when the workload is fairly light.
Source: A graduate-level computer architecture course.

Truth being told, the ability to provide computational power (if that's what you mean by energy) in short bursts is crucial for desktop as well. That's why they have TurboBoost on Intel chips.

Yes, computational power is what I meant. True, all devices that can expect to have a bursty workload at some point in time (including phones and desktops) need to be able to handle it. The main difference is heat dissipation.

I agree with what you said, just wanted to point out that bursty workload is not specific to phones.

First, Java virtual machine can historically benefit from multi-core more than typical desktop software. Even if you write a single-threaded app in Java, it will run faster on a multicore because most of the garbage collector code will run alongside with your app.
Second, a lot of things are going on in the background on your phone: automatic updates, ad downloads, antivirus software, management of GSM module, etc. On a laptop, all these tasks would barely keep one core busy, but ARM cores are much less powerful, so you may want to have at least a couple of those dedicated to background tasks if you want a responsive system.
Finally, there's marketing. Not many users are capable of assessing whether they would benefit from 8 cores, but an 8-core smartphone certainly sounds more expensive than 2 or 4 core one.

I keep seeing statements along the line of "ARM cores are much less powerful" - what does that exactly mean? They have less clockspeed?

@Abdul less operations per second. x86 chips can execute several operations at once, so they outperform ARM even for the same clock speed. Check out this comparison: the top ARM chip (GT-I9100) is about 10 times slower than the top x86 chip (i7-2920XM).

Is "operations per second" synonymous with FLOPS?

@Abdul Not necessarily. In fact, aside from games and physics simulations, floating point is not used that much. Also, many ARM chips achieve decent FLOPS by crippling the precision, so it's not the one true measurement either.

Android apps don't run on Java virtual machine. They run on Dalvik VM

@LưuVĩnhPhúc Still, Davlik code is generated from Java bytecode and thus relies on the GC being there.

Background tasks like sync are IMHO mostly I/O-bound and can have low priority. GC might be an usecase, but a with concurrent GC (i.e., a GC that can keep the app running when collecting), I doubt you will typically see a benefit of more than one extra core unless GC has ti run very often. And when GC has to run very often, there is probably something wrong.

@v6ak True, but wouldn't there be a GC thread for every process? So once there are 2-3 active processes running on the phone, 4-8 cores don't look that unreasonable.

@DmitryGrigoryev Do you consider heavy GC in multiple processes as a common scenario? In fact, many background processes would probably work better with stop-the-world GC than with concurrent GC. The main drawback of stop-the-world GC is sudden hiccup, which usually doesn't matter in background processes (with few exceptions like playing music, but they are mostly handled by a native code or HW acceleration anyway). The concurrent GC has some overhead, reducing the total throughput, so it is not ideal for typical background processes.

The concurrent GC has one advantage, it uses less memory bandwith by using overall more memory. Memory bandwith is one of the real problems with ARM and smartphone technology.

The answers so far explain some facets of the problem leading to this overwhelmingly many number of CPU cores on Android phones. Read that again; Android phones. The iPhone has managed to stuck to just a couple of cores for ages and still performs much smoother than any Android flagship.
The designers of Android made a huge gamble when deciding to chose the Java programming and as a consequence the JVM as the runtime of applications. Java, due to its design principles solves the problem of needing to compile and build code for each CPU architecture before it could be run on it by sacrificing performance. Java introduces a heavyweight and bulky virtual machine usually called the JVM. The JVM actually emulates a CPU at software level to avoid the need to compile code separately for each device. Think of the JVM as a virtual CPU which has the same properties regardless of the device running it so the code need only be compiled once for the JVM and could then be run on every device. This allows manufacturers to throw any hardware they want before needing to worry about application compatibility. This also allows devices them to fill the market with both crappy low-end devices and quality high-end ones and eventually dominate it.
The JVM itself is merely a specification and people are free to develop their own JVM as long as it adheres to this spec. The original android JVM was called Dalvik. Nowadays Google has replaced that with ART.
Now what is the problem with JVM? It is a heavy piece of software which consumes a whole lot of computing resources. Add to this some other properties of the Java language such as Garbage Collection and the JVM's resource consumption simply becomes too much for a device with modest hardware power. Each application and system service open on your device is itself an instance of the ART JVM and by now you could conclude that managing them all requires some really capable hardware. Thing will get even worse when there is the need to draw user interfaces.
Each application runs on a number of Threads. Each CPU core can run only one thread at a time. Each app has one main thread on which it does the stuff related to the user interface. There could be many more threads per application for doing file access, network, etc. There are generally more apps (and system services) open than there are CPU cores and as a result there are usually much more threads than there are CPU cores. So each core has to switch between processing different threads constantly, doing a little of each one and going to next. This switching takes a lot of time for the CPU and in case of the applications being essentially JVMs, this task becomes even more exhaustive. By increasing the number of cores you simple reduce the number of applications (and therefore threads) each core needs to worry about and that increases the general performance.
Based on this explanation one could deduce that android needs powerful hardware to run smoothly. The early generations of Android devices were famous for lagging, crashing and many other unfortunate things. But over the years these problems have been mostly solved by relying on powerful hardware.
On the other hand, iOS application are compiled to native machine code and hence don't need the virtualization. The language used and the operating system are also more efficient and hence allow these devices to remain smooth without the need for some overkill chipset.

This is a nice explanation why mobile phones are much more powerful than desktops. Or aren't they?

“This allows manufacturers to throw any hardware they want before needing to worry about application compatibility.” – good point, but I am not sure if this was the intention for a system intended (originally) for cameras.

“There could be many more threads per application for doing file access, network, etc” – those are rather I/O-bound, not consuming much CPU. Sometimes, I/O is handled just by one thread, because CPU is much faster than I/O devices.

“The early generations of Android devices were famous for lagging, crashing and many other unfortunate things” – I remember running Marshmallow on such phone (Xperia Mini Pro), and I think that there are many other reasons for being slow than CPU. They run on low RAM had slower flash devices like MTD (much slower than microSD cards for some operations), older Androids had a less efficient “JVM” (which is not technically a JVM). Sure, better CPU also helps, but I would be far from such conclusion.

Also, programming style like performing I/O (or other long operations) in UI thread can make apps laggy regardless of CPU performance. AFAIK, this style is quite common in early Android apps. Such apps can be laggy even with modern phones. They will be probably less laggy, but that's more due to faster flash memories than faster CPUs or more cores.

@v6ak RAM is certainly an issue. The JVM is a very resource hungry process and having lots of RAM allows the operating system to keep as much of the application in main memory, reducing the time it takes to switch between them and etc. Also a reason behind why these Android flagships have ridiculously high amount of RAM.

@v6ak You are absolutely right. The problem is that in an Android application, everything (including services and broadcast receivers which are the operating system's messaging facilities) runs on the UI thread by default which can negatively affect performance. This is however becoming less of a problem as Google has introduced efficient threading facilities and later platform versions prohibit doing I/O on the main thread at build time.

Resuming all above, i can say that use cases of PC and phone are quite different. PC most times used in single or couple of apps (of course browser with bunch of tabs require many cpu cores, can lag even on top i-3), phones used to multitask. At least network connection, UI draw, system triggers, notifications. If you open task manager on PC there are many of processes too, but they use less than few % of cpu power even on old Core 2 duo.
4 cores is pretty cheap (MTK 65x2 was cost 1$ at start for OEM) It`s also RISK vs CISC when last lack on performance per core. Energy efficient != powerful, as we can see here. Multi-core is perfect for mobile,because no serious heavy single tread load, and multi-task aimed experience (but we can see that iPhones need less cores and RAM due to good software like in this video or others )

Many of this is often performed on laptop, too. And multitasking doesn't have to be CPU-demanding. Difference in manufacturing costs might cause some differences and might be a reason for fewer cores for lowend CPUs, but I doubt that manufacturing costs is the only reason why not all i7s have at least four cores. I believe that manufacturing costs are just a tiny fraction of price of those CPUs.

@v6ak, problem is that x86 cores is bigger and more complicated,  CPUs from intell (or amd) are just not good enough to be top model. In fact, most of them is  got blocked some parts and become junior i7 or Pentiums. ARM cores looks less tricky so not so many models arrive each year. Still true octa core was Samsung Exynos Octa 7xxx, MTK Helio X10, Latest (X30) even propose little(4).Middle(4).BIG(2) , we can her in ads that it is a 10 core processor, cheap marketing does it thing.

I think one of the main driving factors beyond a 4 or 8 (for big:little configurations) is just marketing at the moment.
One huge problem of the high core count is when you consider the size of the memory. Normally in desktop apps when you want to improve the utilization of multiple cores you need to duplicate structures and use much more memory then in a single threaded application.
This does not happen because RAM is very expensive (especially in the 2017/2018 RAM crisis situation). Marketing wants high numbers but controlling want to cut on component prices. If you see a balance which is less than 1 Gigabyte of RAM per core then you see a failed compromise.


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Android camera "View details"
Few days ago, I was taking a picture of a machine and the camera app showed a tooltip saying View details I tapped on it and a new screen appeared saying Product in the title and a list of numbers in it.
I have not managed to get that screen/tooltip again, but I am curious to know what it was, any idea? It is on a Honor 5C with Android 6.

Honor 5C Camera App used for scanning the QR code and obtain the contacts !! explains this as a smart way to add contacts without typing

Go to contacts

Click on the QR code of the contact

The QR code will be appearing on the screen

Open the Camera App in the Honor 5C phone

Click on the View details. Click on Create new contact and Click on Add to contacts

I don't have that device but this seems to be what you saw and introduced in EMUI 4.1

It is not exactly the QR code of a contact (or a QR code at all), but I presume the app might have identified something on the machine and applied the same principle.

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Retrieve the original content of a webpage that was browsed in Chrome?
I browsed a post on Craigslist in Chrome in my Android phone, and after a few hours when I checked the post again using the same URL, the webpage says that the author of the post has deleted the post.
Is there some way to retrieve the original post, for example, from the browser of my phone?
I also googled the URL of the post, but Google only shows the first sentence of the original post in the search result, and the search result doesn't provide a "Cache" option. Is it possible to see the entire post in Google server's cache?

Follow the instructions on View webpages cached in Google Search Results
The gist is:
1. On your computer, do a Google search for the page you want to find.
2. Click the green down arrow to the right of the site's URL.
3. Click Cached.
There also are other sites that do that for you, for instance http://cachedview.com/

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Nexus 6 file transfer over USB is not an option
I have a Nexus 6 (just factory reset).  When I connect it to my computer through USB, it charges, but nothing else.  My computer doesn't recognize any new device being plugged in, and my phone does not pop up with the dialog asking what I want to do (Charge, MTP, PTP, etc.), nor do I get a notification asking this, even when pulling down from the notification drawer.  I am running Android 6.0.  I have another Nexus 6, and it works fine.  When I plug the first Nexus 6 into any computer, I have the same issue, while the second device works fine in any computer.  I have tried Windows and Mac computers.

In developer options check select USB configuration is not set to Charge only

I did, I actually did another factory reset and haven't enabled developer options yet just in case that was part of the problem

But it was set to MTP before

I see. Possibly changing USB cable and checking may help

I have tried several usb cables, and no difference

The default setting on new devices is now always "Charge only". May be the device came with 5.1 (default setting MTP) and got an upgrade to 6 - therefore the setting was different before.

Yes, but my problem is that the notification asking what mode I want does not appear.

You should try some of the following:

Make sure your phone is not encrypted. (Settings>Personal>Security>Encrypt Phone).
Try enabling USB debugging in dev settings and use adb devices and see if it is listed (you will obviously need adb).
Keep trying USB cables!
Try using something like ASUS File Manager to wirelessly transfer the files.
If they are photos you are trying to transfer, consider using Google Photos (accessible at drive.google.com)

It is encrypted, but so is the other phone (the one that works).  However, I am trying pretty much everything now, so how do I decrypt it?
I have adb, and it is not listed
I will :P
I will look into this
It is not just photos, but also files and I want to flash an Android N image at some point

Nevermind apparently you can't decrypt without a factory reset.  Even though I did a factory reset it and it's still encrypted.  Hmm


text:
What do the terms "BL", "AP", "CP", and "CSC" mean in Odin?
I'm trying to Use Odin to download a OS to my phone (Trying to put Raspbian. Raspbian runs on the raspberry pi which has an ARM processor my android phone also has one so hopefully it'l work.)
(does something like an ISO file work? i dunno i'm gonna try and see)
when i use Odin i see these file types "BL" "AP" "CP" "CSC" what are they??
i have no idea but i really want to know and i want to know if my android phone has something like a BIOS where i can chose to boot from a USB flash drive(this might sound really silly.)
my phone has USB-OTG support but if it depends on some sort of drivers will they work in a bios (if android phones have one)please help!!
oh and ive already rooted my phone.

So you still believe Raspbian will magically work - sorry but that just can't be the case. Unlike PC OS where one copy of OS installer can get most things running on most PCs, software for embedded devices (including both phones and boards like Pi) are incredibly limited in the drivers they come with, and only supports their target hardware. Plus, manufacturers won't allow booting from external and/or unsigned (by themselves) sources (they've been working hard to lock things down to the opposite).

@AndyYan is there no way to do something like this? I mean you've basically got a computer in your hands.

You don't - manufacturers deliberately prevent you from doing so. Only the most popular phones get ways to circumvent the lockdown, and even that is getting even harder and rarer (case in point, Qualcomm variants of Galaxy S7/S7E are virtually invincible).

@AndyYan that's kinda sad to hear but thanks for everything!!! Learned ALOT :)

Why did the author of the application waste so much precious space with so many letters? "B", "A", "C", and another "C" would do just fine!

https://android.stackexchange.com/q/141460

CSC (Consumer Software Customization): It is specific to geographical region and carriers. It contains the software packages specific to that region, carrier branding and APN setting.
PIT (Partition Information Table): You only need it if you screw up your partition table or if the firmware specifically requires it because of a change in the partition table layout.
BL (Bootloader): As its name implies, this option is used to flash the Bootloader of the device.
AP (Application Processor or PDA): Android.
CP (Core Processor): We call it Modem.

Thanks.  Last time Samsung Pay was not working when I did with Odin.  I did only AP that time.  Now did CSC too.  It works.  I assume Samsung Pay + KNOX checks CSC also to ensure official status and not just AP.  Thanks for your answer, now I know.

Which part contains Recovery Mode and Download Mode?

SMS application is crashed. should I download CSC only?

AP is what you select when you're installing a recovery image, which is separate from Android, correct?

Android partition! not Application Processor

According to this XDA-Developers forum post and this Droidguiding article:

BL stands for bootloader
AP represents the system partition (possibly stands for Android partition); under previous Odin versions, this was called "PDA"
CP represents your modem
CSC stands for Consumer Software Customization, this specifies the features your Android device gets according to its geographical location and carrier


text:
Notifications are very delayed on android - but only sometimes (apparently FIXED)
I searched for my problem but what I found either wasn't answered or was very old response and maybe things have changed since then...
I just got a Samsung Galaxy S8 and it's amazing, but maybe since yesterday notifications are a bit slow. I just answered and email that I got an hour ago from my computer while my phone still didn't show the notification. I got some test messages and again, they showed up but only after I opened up gmail app and refreshed it.
What might help find the answer - right now I'm spending most of the time on my computer when I have gmail website opened (for hangouts) and thunderbird for emails. However the days before I was mostly outside with my laptop either turned off of inactive.
Btw, I had a similar issue with the old phone (also android) but I just blamed it being 4 years old and acting up.
So what could be the possible issue? Some kind of setting on my phone? Possible network changes? (I changed cities in those days, maybe the network here sucks and phone tries to use it instead of wifi... I'm just looking for options here). Or is it just the fact that I have gmail / thunderbird opened?
Thanks in advance.

I looked around with more settings and a lot of online research and eventually I found this link:
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1075549?co=GENIE.Platform%3DiOS&hl=en
Apparently what I really had to do was go to
gmail app -> settings -> my account name
below notifications there's item "inbox - sound and vibration"
Turn "Notify about every message"
And that decreased the delay from hours (or never getting notifications) to 10 minutes maximum, with average time being 5 minutes.
I still don't know why this option would be off by default, seems like a very important thing. I am posting this in case someone else will have this problem.

You could try to exclude Gmail app from the battery optimization setting: Go to Settings → Battery (or Power Manager) → select Battery optimization → search for Gmail and set as not optimizing battery use. This process might be different on newer versions of Android, I am using Marshmallow (Android 6).
And also in the new version of Gmail has a feature for notifying only for important messages and maybe it's turned on.

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


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Google Play Store download stops to a certain percentage on large programs
Hey fellow Android Enthusiasts,
I have encountered a very weird problem which I hope you could help. When I download a large apps from Google Play Store, it always pauses at a certain percentage, for example:

Angry Bird 2 (about 120 MB of download size), the download always stopped at 61%.
Need for Speed No Limits (About 787 MB of download size), the download always stopped at 97%.

When I say stop, basically the Download Manager would suddenly disappear and then the Download bar in Google Play Store would just be “stuck” at that percentage (data traffic speed also dropped from a few M/s to a few k/s before hitting 0). I have tried downloading via mobile data or Wi-Fi and both still result the same.
I thought it was because my phones are running out of storage space, however my internal storage has 24.58 GB free and SD card has 4.55 GB free, either of which is way larger than the installation size of the two games listed above. It is also weird that the downloader stopped at the higher percentage in N4S game than AB2 game since N4S has much larger download size than AB2.
I have tried canceling the download and re-downloading and it stuck at the exactly same percentage. I have also tried cleaning the cache (/Cache/Download and delete everything in there) and even tried deleting the entire Google Play Store app and reinstalling it, and the exactly same thing happenned. I have also switched to different Wi-Fi network and switched between Wi-Fi and Mobile data.
My Google Play Store is the highest version I can find on Apkmirror (version 7.9.52.Q-all[0][PR]156316931) and I have given the permission to Storage and my Location. Phone is Huawei P9 Plus (VIE-AL10) and currently on Build Number B356 (Android 7.0 with Kernel version 4.1.18-gf6402d0).
Could you please help me?

I would suggest getting APK files from your favorite APK website for the apps in question. Also, try updating Google Play from the Google Play store, NOT Apkmirror.
Not to mention the obvious stuff such as force restarting google play services, or restarting your phone.
You could also just give it a while. My phone does something similar where it will get stuck at 100% and will take a while to go to installing. Good Luck!

Thanks but I don't think I can find Google Play from Google Play Store...may be I am missing something...

You can go to Play Store->Settings. Then click on Play Store version one or two times. Then, if any update is available, it will be automatically downloaded and installed.

Do not close or cancel it. After some time it will already start downloading . I also got struck many time while downloading a game but my mistake was that when it downloading stops i always cancel the download. But  for first time i didn't do anything for 5-10 minutes after which it already start downloading and download manager again appears ..I was downloading Call of duty mobile unreleased

i too had face this problem with my home WiFi. for resolving this issue you should reset your home WiFi settins or your

Can you give the steps to do that?


text:
Remove Circle Icon in Notifications
A new icon appeared in my notifications today. It looks like Remove Circle from the Material icons, except with an additional outline.
There's no info/action when I try to press on it; if I try to drag the notification section down, the icon disappears until the section collapses back.
Rebooting did not remove it.
It looks almost like the left-most icon on the right side of this screenshot (source):

That icon certainly looks like a do not disturb icon (DND).
You can turn it off from quick settings or in Settings >> Sounds  >> DND

In my android nougat device, thats the same exact icon that appears when DND is enabled

This is almost the right answer. While there's no DND setting in Settings >> Sounds, I saw that I couldn't change the ringer volume, and I had to use the notifications "switch" on my phone hardware (toggles between all/priority/silent). Thanks for the help.

anytime :) glad you fixed it


text:
Force country code on known numbers to send an SMS
I've been looking on the internet for an answer, to no avail. I have a phone mostly used in France, I recently brought to the US with a US sim card. Unfortunately, most contacts were added with the default French format (ten-digit number starting by "06" or "07").
Unfortunately, here in the US, one would need to have the country code in front of the number (+336 instead of 06) for the text to go through the US network. And this is where Android shows its weaknesses.
Indeed, even if you:

delete a complete SMS conversation
add the country code to the contact, and then change one digit at the end of the contact so the number associated to the conversation should be removed from the system
reboot the phone
wait 1 day for anything delayed to take effect
change the digit back into the real number, this time with country code
try to send a text by explicitly typing in the number (not the contact name) with +33

Then, it does not matter that you have done steps 1-5, Android will still "snap" your complete number with country code, to the default one he had (and still remembers somehow), which was without.
It now comes to the extent that I especially pay attention when writing a new contact, to always add the country code, since the first time the system sees the number, so that it can never dream of removing that country code by itself.
I have tried installing a third-party SMS app like Pulse SMS, but it uses Android's built in SMS contact book, so same "snap" problem.
What I would like instead, would be an SMS app that ignores the contact book, or recreates its own from the real contact book (not the image of the contact book stored in the SMS app), so that I can finally "force" the country code onto the SMS app (or more simply, that adding the country code in the address book would add it in the SMS app, which would be normal behavior), so the SMS can be sent, otherwise, it can't!
Does anyone know of such a low-level SMS app, or of a way to trick the built-in app to finally use the country code?
Thanks!

Aren't ISD codes not working? That's how we send international sms in India at least (like if you're in US, then add +91 to contacts to specify India).

Well that's the thing, even if I try adding it, e.g. typing manually +336 X XX XX XX XX, if it corresponds to a contact I already have (or had), it will convert the +33 to 0 upon sending. The action of sending the text starts a processing that will convert the +33 to 0 and then send, no matter what I do!

@MrBrody That will always happen. You must change the contact number by editing the contacts, and adding the ISD codes to each. Otherwise,  messages will be sent to the number saved in contact, because while searching for contact by number, Android does not take into account ISD codes.

Well, here again, did change the contacts beforehand and added +33. That was points 2-5 in my post. Contact book has +33, I manually type +33, but the messaging app probably has an anti-alias system (so that you don't end up with 2 threads, one with 06 and one with +336), so it has the following mechanism: number in +336 corresponding to a contact in the address field --> name of corresponding contact --> unique number associated, here 06 (even if the address book now has +336 for that contact) --> he converts to 06 and tries to send when "send" is pressed, and not before...

I confirm that the problem persists on a pixel 3a. But, it is kind of reversed. In my case it is a US number and the SMS messages are linked to the number with the country code. But, within the US the messages must be sent without the country code. I find the same as the OP, there is nothing I can do to prevent the country code from being added. Delete the SMS messages, delete the phone book entries. Android is smart enough to always link the number I enter with the old entry that included the country code, recalling it from oblivion. But, it is too dumb to know that the message must be sent without the country code.
Also the answers given are missing the point. There is nothing we can do to control whether the country code is added. You can delete the contacts or edit them any way you like, the original form of the number will always be retrieved, with the result that you cannot text that number.

were you able to resolve this. I have the same issue as you. I have a US number, trying to text a US number, but somehow a country code got added, and now it generates an error. I have deleted the contact, edited the details, and no luck - android automatically adds the country code (which in turn, causes the error). This also suddenly happened, while I was in the US - and not sure how it came about (which is affecting only on one of my contact as well - albeit someone I text the most out of anyone else).


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Can I Install Stock Android 7 N On Any Device?
I currently own a Redmi Pro running Android Marshmallow with MiUi 8.  Is it possible to install Android 7 Nougut on my phone.. I already have root...

You already had a complete answer, but let me chime in as of why there are so many things not working... You should blame yourself for not buying a Qualcomm-based phone. MediaTek-based phones are notoriously hard for devs to work with.

Not stock, you would have to install a custom ROM that is specifically designed for your device, they are not generic... Check XDA here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/redmi-pro in the Xiaomi Redmi Pro ROMs, Kernels, Recoveries, & Other Development section. Make sure to do your research and understand the implications and process of installing a custom ROM before starting. Reading in the various XDA forums under your device is a good place to start.
In looking in the development area for your device, it seems the only Nougat ROM in active development is LineageOS 14.1, which is still in alpha stages since some things are not working, major things like calls, camera, mobile data, and more, some major hurdles to overcome yet.
So to answer your question regarding your device, yes, you can but you will not have a fully functional device at this time. I would monitor those areas and see if development continues otherwise it appears you are stuck on Marshmallow.
To answer your generic question, "Can I Install Stock Android 7 N On Any Device?", no you cannot... Android ROM's must be built specifically for each device, they are not generic and not even the same for very closely related devices in almost every case. Some devices have Nougat support from their manufacturer, some have it from third party ROMs, and many do not and will never have it.


text:
After RCA Voyager Factory Reset, It fails to connect to the internet
My phone says it's connected to Wi-Fi, but when I push next it says it couldn'
t connect to the internet.

Could this suggestion on a similar question be useful: https://android.stackexchange.com/a/176537/12442

Is this during initial setup?

Look up at the status bar. Does it have the Wi-Fi icon? If so, your connected. If not, finish up the setup and try going into Settings > Wifi and try again. Still no luck? Make sure your internet does not require a sign-in, and that the password is correct. Sometimes Android has little glitches like that.


text:
Restoring from cloud with TI backup
I had to flash/reset my phone so everything is back to new. I had used Titanium Backup pro to backup everything to Google Drive. I had used encryption. Now how do I get things back? In particular how do I restore from the cloud? I connected to Google Drive, but those backups don't show under the Backup/Restore tab? TI backup is confusing to use.

Can you see the backup on your cloud , without using the app?

@beeshyams yes everything is there and I can view it through Google Drive's web interface

That's strange. Let's wait for solutions


text:
EzCast | How to cast to a projector by connecting to it's Wi-Fi Hotspot and still keep internet Wi-Fi connection?
Two days ago, my dad brought a projector that has a weird miracast system that works when something connects to it's wifi network and mirrors the screen using an app called EzCast.
The thing is, I want to use it to stream videos on my phone while mirroring my screen. The projector does not connect to normal wifi networks, but instead, it hosts its own network where the device to be mirrored/ cast from is to be connected to.
So If I have to watch something on the projector, I lost my internet connection.

Is it possible to connect to two wifi networks at the same time? Or
Is there any other way to get the desired result?. (stream videos
online to the projector).

Thanks. Please pardon the messy wording. I'm typing this on my phone and am an ESL speaker.

I think this works only if the projector is Wi-Fi Direct™
certified, and also if your android device support such capabilities.
Wi-Fi Direct is a Wi-Fi standard enabling devices to easily connect with each other without requiring a wireless access point. Simultaneous Wi-Fi direct and network Wi-Fi is an optional feature for devices. Some devices allow this and some do not.
References

Can a device simultaneously connect to a regular Wi-Fi network and a group of Wi-Fi Direct-certified devices at the same time?
Android running Wifi Lan and Wifi Direct simultaneously
Wi-Fi Direct


text:
What can I do if I forget my passcode to my device (Samsung Galaxy Tab E(2017))?
My brother changed the passcode on his device and it glitched out or something and he has no access to it at all, what can he do?

He need to perform a factory reset. This will delete everything stored in the device.

There has to be something other than that, like using a lock screen remover or something.

And can you please answer in the answer question section.

There is no such thing called a lock screen remover.

Yes there is! there is dr.fone, we already tried it but we failed, I will try it again, there is a slightly different method we didn't try.

How do you use it? Lock removers works only when USB debugging is on. Otherwise I can't see a way.

If the phone's rooted you can try adb. But for Adb you should need the adb debugging option enabled on the phone. write those commands in adb shell of your pc.
adb devices
adb shell
cd data/system
su rm *.key
OR On TWRP Mount the system,use file manager,navigate to data/system remove all files ending with .key
Done.You got your phone unlocked.

wat? I hev no clu to wat u just said...

and yes, i is good at english and spellsing

I mean Unlocking Your phone using "Recovery".Twrp Is a custom recovery for phones.which can help you a lot.

I did not catch anything u just said

@smartbot Thought you had some devices and tech experience...

You need to perform a factory reset that will clear everything stored in the phone memory, unfortunately.
If you previously enabled USB Debugging in the Developer Options, there is a way to remove or reset the lock screen. No data is lost here.
Edit:
On some Samsung device, you can reset the lock code with AT commands when the device on Download mode (Never tried myself though). Some paid softwares can do the job just on one click. z3x, Miracle Box, etc

How do you do the second method though. HUUH???

And no his USB debugging is off.

There is no way to enable USB debugging on a locked device.

not being rude, but I'm not dumb, I have some device and technology experience.

What do I have to understand here?


text:
Removeable battery-like "thing" that provide unlimited power for android phones
Is there this "thing", that have the shape of your android phone's battery, but does not hold any charges, and act as a unlimited power supply for your phone when your phone is plug into a socket?
Yeah, I think it is hard to describe this "thing" but in another words, it is a "thing" that have the shape of your battery for your android phone.
Normally, a phone battery contain charges (e.g. 1600 mAh) but this "thing" does not hold any charges. Basically you just put this "thing" into your phone and plug your phone into a socket outlet and this "thing" will act as a medium to keep your phone running -> meaning that you have unlimited battery life for your android phone as long as the power socket outlet is not switch off.
Of course, if you are going to somewhere and require portability, you just need to replace this "thing" with your normal phone battery. However, if you are going to be in one place for quite a long time, you just need to replace your normal phone battery with this "thing".
Also, you would not need to care for the battery life anymore as this "thing" act as a medium between the power socket outlet and your phone.
So, is there really such a "thing" right now or coming by the end of this year?

Your question is related to How to use android phone without battery?
IMO, the "thing" you visualise is "not a thing
" (couldn't resist the pun) , since

Battery is integral to Android device (unlike an accessory) and the designed usage of device - both these are discussed in my answer to question linked above
Removeable batteries are being phased out , even in lower end devices, so the usage of that "thing" even if it exists,  is very limited

Whether such a "thing" is going to come in any time is open ended but unlikely for reasons above


text:
FB Messenger - How to get around the extreme photo/video compression resulting in poor quality?
I often send photos/videos to my friends on Messenger. The problem is that FB's algorythm compresses them so badly it really affects their enjoyability. I send HD videos, and they get something like it was 2000. I send high quality photos of a document and they can barely read it.

Is there a way to turn off image and video compression in Facebook Messenger?
If not, is there any app/extension for sharing original quality images and videos that is convenient to use both for me and the receiver?

Are you sure it's just Facebook? Most phone carriers transparently compress photos and videos you download over mobile data.

@Dan Hulme I use a tablet without SIM card. It's definetly not the carrier... :] And they look equally crappy on desktop afr\ter I send them.

A bit late to the party here, but I've found that attaching a picture rather than taking it in-app results in a far better quality result on Messenger's servers. If you take a picture with your default camera app (which stores it locally), and then use Messenger's 'picture' icon to attach it (rather than using the 'camera' icon), the resulting link to FB's CDN containing the picture gives you a file ~50% bigger than the in-app version. Still seriously compressed, mind you.

This is not really a solution, more so a workaround, but as I got no answers for 3 years, I decided to post it.
While I think messenger got better lately, it still compresses every media. It's no surprise - they have to store them on their own server after all. But there are a lot of messaging apps that store all media on the recipient's phone instead. Most of these send all media uncompressed, or at most compressed in a barely noticeable way, and they have the additional benefits of generally being much more private and secure than Messenger. Some I used for a longer time are:

WhatsApp - it's very widely used everywhere in the world. Used to be renowned for its privacy, but recently there have been issues regarding that as Facebook made modifications. It sends all media without any compression.
Signal - it's a new one, but already gained widespread usage comparable to WhatsApp. Most of the users changed from WhatsApp as Facebook made those privacy-violating steps. (In fact, the week that happened, they had so many new users they temporarily had to shut down the service as the servers couldn't keep up.) It is by far the most private one, as the whole service including the app and the server is completely open-source. Especially used in areas where privacy is more of a concern, like the USA, troubled areas like Hong Kong, or non-democratic countries, but it is gaining popularity everywhere.
LINE - I used it on a daily basis, and among all these, it feels the most "premium". I like the interface, and the stickers and themes are, while paid, are of exceptional quality. Out of all, it's the closest to Messenger in terms of features. Mostly widespread in the Eastern-Asia region, especially in Japan.  It also has an interesting backstory: originally it was created by the LINE corp. for internal usage after the Fukushima accident, to let the employees spread and gain information quickly. Then it proved useful and more and more outside people requested to join, so eventually it became public.
Telegram - I haven't used this too much, but it is roughly on the same level as Whatsapp used to be before the disputed steps of Facebook.
KakaoTalk - I barely know its existence, but I list it for completeness. Just as LINE, it's mostly used in Eastern Asia.


text:
How do I copy text from my Phone's inbox to my PC's text editor?
I am looking for a way to copy text from my Phone's inbox to my PC's text editor, sort of a shared clipboard. My PC's text editor has Ctrl key disabled. So, is there any way to paste the text from phone?

Are you looking to do this only once in a while or regularly? For one-off uses I'd just edit a mail on the phone, save it as a draft, then obtain it by logging into the mailbox on PC.

You may be able to achieve that using  tools like Clipsync, Uniclip etc. to share clipboards over local area connections.
Using ClipSync
Setup
You need both the client and server. The advantage of Clipsync is that it is very small in size compared to other tools in this category.
You can get the ClipSync Android client from playstore  (147K B size) and ClipSync server (desktop) (≈ 900KB size) from the main website.
Instructions

First, you need to install the android app on your mobile device, and a Windows program on your PC.
After ClipSync is set up, there will be a background service running on all your devices.
This background service will automatically keep your clipboards synchronized.
Copying text from Android to Windows

Long press any text on your Android device and select Copy then paste the text on your PC text editor program  with Right-click → Paste.
Client:

Screenshot (click image for larger variant)
Server (notification)

Credits: ClipSync: Synchronize your clipboards over LAN


text:
Android MultiUser: show notification for all users
I have an LG Nexus 5 with Android 6.0.1, the device is rooted and with XPosed installed (if this can be useful to the question).
I have 2 different Android users, one is personal and one is for work. I'm using 2 different accounts instead of Android for Work because I care of keeping the data of the 2 accounts divided at max as possible.
The only (the very only) problem is that I do not receive notifications from an user until I switch it back to it. Is there a configuration, an app, a root procedure, even an XPosed module which can bring the notifications from the 2 accounts togheter?

I don't think you can do much here. It is written here that "Notifications for other users do not appear until active"

I noted something, on my Nexus 5 the notification are not displayed for the unactive account, but the notification LED blinks if any. Every time I see the LED blinking I unlock the phone and found nothing to see, then I switch account and I find the notifications there

this answer confirms notifications are only shown for the current user: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/117438/show-notifications-for-all-users


text:
Ghost touch problem with my Lenovo A3300?
It seems to be happening randomly. There are times where I can use it without any problems occurring and there are times where I can't even scroll properly due to that one spot of the screen getting spammed with random touches. It's honestly driving me nuts!
I know which place the ghost touches are happening as I've turned on the "Show Touches" option in the settings but how can I fix it? Does the screen need to be replaced or something?

So called Ghost touch remedies on Play Store are generally ineffective. Best is to get professionally checked up and replace screen

See this supporting my view https://www.androidpit.com/how-to-fix-the-ghost-touch-problem-on-any-android-device


text:
Can I adjust the graphics memory allocation on my phone?
My current phone is advertised as having 3GB of RAM. Under Settings/Memory Total Memory is listed as 2.8GB.
I recently saw a newer phone with a more modern System-On-a-Chip with 4GB of RAM. Total Memory showed as 3.5GB.
From reading around I believe the difference is down to the memory being set aside for graphics (or perhaps peripheral addressing at a guess, failing that).
If the former, as the screen resolution is the same (1920x1080) and I never had a problem with graphics on the old phone with 200MB set aside, is this something that can be varied, perhaps in a custom ROM, for instance Lineage, or would it be be buried too deep in hardware drivers?

It should be changeable in kernel - back in the old days where a little bit of RAM matters, devs would squeeze RAM from all sorts of places (including graphics) to decrease the default/idle RAM usage.


text:
Too old to custom-rom?
So I got the notion to install cyanogen mod on my old samsung galaxy tab 2 10.1. To speed it up, get it running nougat, and get back into the swing of dabbling with Android software.
The rooting process was simple, but it doesn't seem like I'm able to find what I need in order to get Lineage OS on my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 I can't find the proper tools.
Is it possible for a device to simply be too old to flash a custom rom? Or am I missing an important resource?
If anyone could shed some light, I'd appreciate it.

XDA is the de facto "standard" for roms, especially on common devices like this, but it seems they are struggling to bring Nougat to this device in reading some of these threads. I would suggest watching them and in the mean time find a stable Marshmallow ROM, there seems to be several for this device at the same link I mentioned earlier.
It's not about being "too old" per se, but more if the binary blobs and drivers available from the manufacturer can be incorporated into a new ROM and specifically it's kernel. After a while they just become incompatible and unsupported and outside of the realm of developers to effectively adjust the base source to work.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll set up an account over there as I continue to dabble.


text:
How do people use videofiles as a capture source for cameras?
Sometimes you see people streaming videos through apps that are only supposed to use the device camera. My question is, how can you choose a video file to be your capture source for the camera? I'm thinking it may not be possible to achieve on the regular Android phones. In this case, is there a certain program or Android emulator for PC, which you can configure to capture a certain videofile as if it were a camera input?
Thanks in advance.

Say you want to record yourself playing "Candy Crush". The easiest way to do this is to download an android emulator here: http://www.bluestacks.com/
And then download the game you want to record and a screen recorder.
(I recommend OBS studio.)


text:
Can adb shell work in binary mode?
adb shell sends \r\n instead of \n. Can I tell adb to not change the datastream (just like I can with ssh)?

Yes, but:
The linebreak conversion is not done by ADB, but your host system (and its console host), Windows.
This issue has already been discussed on SO, and there are a few posts providing possible solutions. Here are some of them

Stack Overflow: Read binary stdout data from adb shell?
This site (Android.SE): Is it possible to cat a file to an android phone and dd to /dev/xxx on the fly with just adb shell?

If it is done by GNU/Linux, why can I not do: 'adb shell cat binaryfile > localfile' and have localfile be the same as binaryfile?


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stop WhatsApp duplicating images sent with the camera
At least on my device (Galaxy S6) whenever I send a picture or video on WhatsApp using the camera, the following happens:

A low quality version is stored under WhatsApp/Media/WhatsApp Images/Sent
A higher resolution version is stored in WhatsApp/Media/WhatsApp Images

The same happens with videos under WhatsApp/Media/WhatsApp Video.
In some cases as well, sending pictures from another media source puts them all in "/WhatsApp Images" rather than on the Sent folder.
Every now and then I like to move all the media to my pc/back it up online, sort it on folders etc, which becomes a real pain due to this fact. I.e I want to keep the higher res. versions, then I must first identify them from the "received" folder (for things I send.. why not put them in /Sent??) then delete the low res. versions.
With already a few years on the market and its value you'd expect an app of this magnitude to have a significant team of developers behind, then it's almost unbelievable that such a mess is created by this app.
Am I missing something here, some issue with my device/settings, or does the app just suck at this?


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Possibly Soft-Bricked Droid Razr M
I'm currently in possession of a Droid Razr M that may be "soft-bricked". It's bootscreen won't progress beyond the red Motorola logo. I can't turn it off unless I do it via soft rebooting, in which case it just reboots and gets stuck at the logo again. I've already done a hard (factory) reset, which I assume succeeded. The device never had its bootloader unlocked, nor was it rooted. It did receive all available OS updates available for it (it only went up to some version of KitKat). This is also not a developer edition.
At this point, what I want to know is: can the device have its bootloader unlocked or be rooted in any way? If not, is there anything I can do to restore this device to some kind of working order? I'm unsure as to where I would get appropriate stock images for the device (it had a Verizon-customized Android installed on it), so I was planning on flashing something like LineageOS. If there is nothing I can do for the device at this point, I'd like to know so I can avoid wasting time on it. Thanks for any assistance in advance.

I downloaded adb and fastboot, and neither of those can even see my phone when attached via usb (I'm using Ubuntu Gnome as my host system). I'm beginning to think this device is completely hosed at this point.

you've probably moved on, but you should at least be able to factory reset. there will be two button combinations, one to get into the fastboot loader, and one to get into recovery mode from there. from recovery mode you can do a factory reset. there will also be a button combo for safe mode which you should try before factory reset. the button combos vary for every device.

I tried to boot into safe mode using the button combos for my device, but that didn't work. I think I was able to access the fastboot menu and I selected "factory reset", but that seems to be ineffective as well; the device still gets stuck on the Motorola logo. Thank you for your help anyway.


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Installed TWRP recovery on a Verizon-locked device but didn't unlock bootloader: options?
On a Verizon Galaxy S3, I installed the TWRP recovery not realizing Verizon's bootloader is locked. Now it boots to "System software not authorized by Verizon Wireless has been found on your phone. Please turn off your phone and go to the nearest Verizon Wireless store for help."
Short of actually going to the Verizon store and begging them to recover this phone, what are my options for recovering from this mess? I imagine if I could just rewrite the original recovery then I could use an easy unlocker app inside the OS. I did back that up before installing TWRP so there's that.
Worth noting: through some combination of buttons I did once get this to boot into Odin(?). It said it was downloading something but never seemed to finish. Not sure if that's helpful.


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Galaxy S5 device does not receive ip packet
I have the following setup:
Android Galaxy S5 Mini. Android version 5.1.1.
I have 2 network interfaces:

Interface1 with ip: 192.168.5.1
Interface2 with ip: 192.168.5.10

I create a DatagramSocket using Android SDK and bind it to address: 192.168.5.10(Interface 2), port 2525.
I put this socket in receive and wait for packets. I use another device to send the packets.
Packets from ip address: 192.168.5.4 is received.
Packets from ip address(different device): 192.168.5.1 (same as the device's Interface1 ip) is never received.
It seams that the network stack rejects packets which have source ip address which exists in the device, regardless of the interface it was received in.
If I modify the ip address for Interface1 to something other than 192.168.5.1 it works fine.
Devices on which it didn't happen:

Samsung tablet T113 Android 4.4.4 (Stock rom)
LG G4 Android 6.0 (Stock rom)
LG Nexus 5X Android 7.1.2 (Stock rom)

Devices on which it did happen:

Galaxy S5 Mini Android 5.1.1 (Stock rom)
Galaxy Note 3 Android 6.0.1 (CyanogenMod)
One+1 Android 6.0.1 (CyanogenMod)

What is the mechanism which rejects the packet with source IP 192.168.5.1(same as the device's Interface1 ip)?

I suspect IP address conflict, also you can't have gateway ip address match client ip address.

@xavier_fakerat I managed to use Android's VPNService and inject a packet to the system.
If it has the source ip of any interface - the problem occurs. It doesn't seem to be related to GW/Client issue.

+1 Yes you are right, I actually stumbled across this here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/106291/send-a-packet-over-the-network-even-when-its-target-is-the-local-host. I reckon this needs root

I found why this happens, but not sure if I can do anything about it without root. There is a system configuration per network interface  called accept_local. For example: net.ipv4.conf.wlan0.accept_local. When it is set to 0, it can't receive packets from another local interface. Probably when it works on other devices, this configuration is set to 1. On Galaxy Note 3 it was set to 0. Once I did this, everything started working, but root was needed.
Update
Found a site which list the system variables values: https://census.tsyrklevich.net/
Specifically:

https://census.tsyrklevich.net/sysctls/net.ipv4.conf.wlan0.accept_local
https://census.tsyrklevich.net/sysctls/net.ipv4.conf.wlan0.rp_filter

fixed formatting

@xavier_fakerat I checked the value of accept_local on the devices that worked with no modification. accept_local = 0, which means that it shouldn't have worked on them. So how come it did?


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Security Patch level old on Moto G5
My Moto G5's System Updates show that my device software is up to date. However the Security patch level shows up as "March 1 2017".
Three months seems like a long time in the security exploits world. On the other hand, I see newer security patches on here:
https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2017-05-01
Is there a way to bring my phone up to date to the latest patches?

If OEM doesn't update only option is to root and install custom ROM that incorporates these updates. No other way AFAIK while staying stock

Although the OS of Moto phones bears a resemblance to Google's stock or AOSP, Moto themselves isn't as committed as Google themselves to bring security patches in time - in fact, they explicitly stated that they will NOT guarantee monthly security patches like Google does with its Nexus/Pixel line.
As of now there's nothing you can do if you want to keep your warranty and stay away from custom ROMs.


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Is it possible to use MicroSD socket as a generic expansion card slot?
Considering that I have:

Android phone with MicroSD slot (non-rooted)
A microcontroller with SDIO & SPI interfaces support

Is it possible for an app which is running on non-rooted device to establish a link (i.e. send arbitrary data in two ways) with a microcontroller?

No. In the root context maybe,  but you would have to write all the code and kernel drivers yourself, Android just isn't designed to use a microSD slot that way. I left this as a comment as I can't quote a source.

No, the SD card interface is very high-level, and only works for block filesystems. And even if it weren't, there's no way for a userspace app to talk directly to the card anyway.


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Google voice type offline doesn't work properly
If I touch on voice type tool it shows me following message "Google voice typing tool requires Google search app" but  Google search app have been installed on my phone.

How can I fix this?

Have you modified your phone in any way? Custom ROMs? Rooting? Etc...

No I didn't it was working fine before hard reset

Is voice input enabled in your keyboard settings?

Sorry for the late response @xavier my keyboard setting doesn't have configuration for voice input and it was working fine while ago. I am having this problem since i hard reset my phone


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ADB root acces not working
I have installed a Custom Rome on my Nexus 5x. In the developer options, I can activate USB debugging, but I can not give ADB any root rights.
Is there a possibility to assign ADB root rights?
I have tried that and received the message "not running as root"
Heres a Picture from my CMD:

With another rom it has already worked.
This is the rom i use.

Have you tried setting SELinux to "permissive" in adb shell?

I'm not sure how to do that.

run adb shell in the shell console type'setenforce 0 . Then retry earlier commands.

SELinux-Status has changed. I still get the message "not running as root".

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

I have a feeling that your kernel is running adbd in secure mode. Could you tell us the output of adb shell getprop ro.secure?

I'm not at the PC, so I tried it with a terminal emulator. The output it was: 1

Are you sure you have root? The description of the ROM doesn't say it's rooted, and someone else on the forum page you linked gives instructions for installing a selection of su implementations.

I have flashed supersu. Ich dont have Problems with other root apps.


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Android 6: disable roaming completely
On my Galaxy J510 I have primary sim for calls and secondary for data only. Operator 2 doesn't have 100% coverage and provides data on its own network only.
However after losing signal, phone warns and a couple minutes later switches to roaming and disables data connection. After network is available, roaming is not turned off. My current annoying way to regain data connection is:

Settings
Mobile Networks
Network Operators
SIM2
Search Networks
(wait ca. 30s)
My operator

I want phone to stay in SIM2 not connected mode forever until home network is available - connection loss is not a problem cos I can answer calls via SIM1.
Thanks fo any ideas.

Fixed this issue by changing SIMs in slots, former secondary is now primary.
SG J510 apparently can not disconnect roaming and search for home network on SIM2 slot.
Real answer still appreciated.


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How to use Google Assistant in car while paired to Bluetooth, but without changing audio input to Bluetooth?
My car has Bluetooth, and I use this mostly for phone calls, though occasionally for music. So my phone is paired, and automatically connects to my car when it starts.
Occasionally, while driving, I'd like to use Google Assistant. eg: "OK Google, Note to self..."
Currently this is pretty annoying because I usually don't have the "input" for the sound system set to Bluetooth, yet my phone is trying to route all media audio, including Google Assistant, through Bluetooth. So I before I can use Google Assistant I first have to change the input. Then the car automatically tells the phone to start playing music. I have to then stop the music I didn't want to be playing in the first place. Finally I can use the assistant. Doing all of this while also trying to pay attention to the road and remembering what I actually want to ask the assistant is not fun.
(To make matters worse, it seems my wife's car actually re-sends the "start music" command if there's no audio for a couple of minutes.)
I do not want to completely disable media audio over Bluetooth, as I do use it occasionally.
So what is the solution? Can I have Google Assistant always use the phone's speakers? Can I have the phone ignore "start music" commands via Bluetooth? Something else?

If you have the newer android 7.0 OS version, yes there is a way:
Go to - Settings -> Sound and Vibration -> Separate App Sound
Once there, tap "app" and select "add application", then look for the google assistant app (labeled "Google" with the "G" trademark icon that has a small inner grey circle around it within the app icon bubble).
Set this app up with the audio device "phone", and it should work solely through the phone speaker/mic from then on, even when your car Bluetooth is connected.

My phone is running 8.0.0 and there is no "Sound and Vibration" section in the system settings. There is a "Sound" section, but it does not contain a "Separate App Sound" section. I even tied searching for "separate" in the system settings, but there were no results.

This answer seems to be device specific, as no device I own has this setting either. You should update the answer to include your phone make and model as it may help someone, although it may not be applicable to the original question (which did not specify make/model of device either)

This is present in my Samsung Note 8.  So could be a Samsung specific settings.   I did not test it yet.

Search the Play Store for the app "Out Loud". Works perfectly.
You can selectively choose which apps you want to always route audio through the phone speaker even when connected to bluetooth. It's great for your problem (interacting with the Assistant) as well as when using Maps' navigation, and even reads incoming texts out loud (just be careful if you have someone else in the car with you!)


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AFWALL+ doesn't block apps when on WiFi
I'm currently running AfWall+ on LineageOS (Android 7.1.2) and seem to have a problem with this app. When I'm on WiFi it doesn't stop anything it's supposed to (works just fine on mobile).
Can someone please advice what cold be the problem?

I came across your question because I had the same problem, and I just figured it out (although it might be a different cause in your case).
Details of my case (to see if it applies):
I'm also on 7.1.2 (LineageOS 14.1), and I'm using a VPN with AFWall+ v2.9.8. AFWall+ is supposed to only allow connections through the VPN. It's actually been working fine for a while, but it suddenly started allowing connections through my WiFi even when the VPN was off (it still worked properly on mobile data).
I eventually came to the conclusion that this was caused by the fact that my ISP provider started switching to IPv6, and it seems that AFWall+ doesn't support IPv6 by default (by that, I mean it doesn't apply the rules to IPv6 traffic). This is, of course, a wild guess, because I couldn't find any manual for it that explains the details of the slightly cryptic/confusing settings (e.g., not sure what the "Only Control IPv6 Chains" option means and why it is mutually exclusive with the "IPv6 support option).
Solution:
Having said all that, the solution that worked for me was to go to Preferences > Rules/Connectivity and under "IPv6 Chains", check the option for IPv6 support ("Enable support for IPv6").
When I applied the firewall rules after doing this, it applied twice as many rules as it was before I enabled IPv6 support. This is what led me to believe that previously, it was only applying my rules to IPv4 traffic, while now, it's applying my rules to IPv4 and IPv6 traffic (hence, twice as many rules).
Of course, even if I'm unclear on the AFWall+ settings, the main reason I believe this is the cause/solution is that everything works as expected now!


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Why do you sometimes have to press the device rotation tile twice for it to function?
I have a auto rotate quick tile  which was originally on stock Android on my Nexus 6p running Android 7.1.2 nougat. I realized that in some cases, after I press the autorotate tile to change from portrait mode to auto-rotate or vice-versa, it doesn't change and instead stays at what it was before (auto rotate or portrait) until I press the tile again. This occurrence seems to be random and at other times the tile works perfectly normally with each press. How do I make it so that this tile works with one press every time?

I have the same problem. Most of the times it's working just fine and as intended, but sometimes I have to click the tile twice.
Happened on Android 8 and still does on Android 9 on the Google Pixel (1st Gen).
The weird thing is: The click is recognized, as I can see the background animation for the button, but the state does not toggle.

When you tap that button, what is actually happening is a settings file in the phone is updated. If it isn't working on the first tap, it's either caused by lag, or an issue with the quicksetting pane itself. There isn't much you can do as far as a real solution besides a factory reset or using a custom ROM.

I understand. I installed a lot of tiles on my quicksettings so that's probably it.


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UDP no longer allowed to send on android 7+?
So I have been running an app on android (Samsung Note 4) with out trouble until the latest phones started coming out with android 7+ (Samsung S8, OnePlus3T).    Now I find that UDP is blocked on the phone in the app.
Is there a new setting that blocks UDP broadcasts?
I used Evothings app to test that UDP is blocked.
I noticed a change with the way WiFi works on android. If the WiFi connection doesn't have internet, the system seems to behave differently.  Does WiFi work differently if there is no internet?
Again, it still works with the older versions of android.  If you have come across this problem please share.

Please don't cross-post the same question on multiple SE sites. It's very rare that the same question is on-topic on several sites, and as you've found, it splits up answers, making it harder for future visitors to find information.

@DanHulme I am asking about settings here.  I am not asking how to program.  This is specific to the user group because it is settings.  Turns out that I couldn't find a setting, though the question is very relevant.  I would still like to know if there is some setting that changes the WiFi or UDP connections in the newer android versions.

@DanHulme I have modified the question.  I am looking for info on settings.  Please re-open the question.  I would like to understand if people feel WiFi has changed.  And if there is a setting for UDP.

It turns out that the newer versions require another call to set that you want to multi broadcast over UDP.
I could not find any setting that relates to UDP or how WiFi works without internet connection.


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How to lookup a specific security certificate on my phone?
I have been trying to find out which security ca certificate is which on my phone, when they are all active my phone runs really slow.
Is there a way to find these certificates?

It seems unlikely that a CA certificate could make your phone slower, so perhaps the problem isn't what you think it is. What makes you think it's the certificates?

Go to your Settings app -> Security -> Trusted Certificates and you'll find all of them. Tap on an item and there's a "Disable" button available.


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Is there a way to get the font on my phone onto my tablet?
I have a Galaxy S5, and it has a built in font called "UDRGothic". I think it's near perfect for mobile use, and so I want to also have it on my Galaxy Tab A 10.1 tablet.
It doesn't seem to be available by default on my tablet, so of course, I Googled it, but all that came up with was a link to some page that describes an associated APK file, but doesn't seem to have a download option. If I try a more nuanced Google search, I get tons of options for various Gothic fonts, but none are the font I'm looking for.
Is this font only for use with my phone, or can I maybe copy it from my phone to my tablet, or get it some other way?

Could we get a picture of the font, some example? And in fonts menu could you make a screenshot of the font where you select it, is there any other who you can select?

A pre-answer note, I'm typing in the mobile Stack Exchange app, so please excuse any spelling errors.
Yes, there is a way, but it requires your tablet to be rooted.
As with most things, go ahead and take a backup of both devices, you never know what could go wrong.
OK, lets begin!
In a file manager of your choice, head into /system/fonts, on the device that has the font you like. This does not require root, because your are only reading from that file, not writing.
Find out a way to copy the font file to your tablet. I would recommend just emailing the font file to yourself, and downloading it from the email onto the tablet.
Now on the tablet, rename that font file to something memorable, like goodfont.ttf. You are going to have to sacrifice the current font, or you can take a backup of the default font file. (If I'm correct I believe it's Roboto-Regular.ttf, but it might be different on yours.)
Now copy goodfont.ttf into /system/fonts (remember, this is on the tablet), and rename it goodfont.ttf to [default font name here].ttf.
Hope I was helpful!

Thank you for responding! Unfortunately, neither device is rooted, so I'm not sure if this solution can be applied.

@Questioner Im guessing rooting isnt an option either?

No, unfortunately it isn't. I have tried rooting before, but, long story short, there were problems, and I had to return to stock.

@Questioner I might be able to help you get it rooted. I would need to know the story, but I think it's possible. If you still want to root it of course.

I appreciate the offer! Unfortunately, I think rooting is not an option for me because when I tried that before, it invalidated certain digital wallet applications I use with Felica.

Ah. I understand


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what's this symbol mean ( square with 3 curved lines)

The leftmost icon(rectangular) on above screen shot showed up yesterday. I don't know, where or what app it's for but I would like it gone.

This symbol is of "Cast screen" found in Android which is used to cast your screen to a television. This symbol in the status bar means that your phone screen is being casted to a television or cast screen is active:

If you want to get rid of it, just go to settings and disable screen casting.
More info:
Google Support

Okay thanks man. I didn't turn screen casting. But again thanks have a good day

Some screen recording apps may also use it to record your screen, so if you are using any screen recording software(as it appears in your screenshot) this might be due to it.

Here is a relevant article on the topic: https://www.technipages.com/google-pixel-connect-to-tv


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Why do some apps allow me to play sounds along other apps, and some apps don't, and can I control this?
The user: I like to play both white noise, such as brown noise or rainfall or other ambient sounds, at the same time as low key ambient music. It helps me concentrate when I work.
The goal: I want to play music from one app, such as Digitally Imported Radio while I simultaneously play brown noise with an app like Chroma Doze.
The problem: The apps take control of sound output exclusively of each other, so that when I play one, the other stops playing.
Almost solutions: I found one app, called Simply Noise, that will play alongside other apps. However, it is not very well developed or maintained. It can't be turned off unless you go to the Application Manager in settings and force close it. At least it partially does the job, though. Most apps, won't play alongside other apps using sound, and some can't be used in the background at all.
The ideal: The best thing would be to find a white noise generator app that is full featured and lets me play alongside my music apps, as well as letting me set volumes independently of each other. Chroma Doze has the nice feature of letting me play with various EQ levels so that I can tweak my perfect noise.
Another option: Is there such a thing as an app that will allow me to mix sound from other apps, so that I can run them simultaneously and control their volumes independently? I looked for that kind of app, but only came up with apps like App Volume Control Pro, which seems to allow me independent volume setting, but does nothing to allow for simultaneous playback.
The Question: Why is it that sound apps are all over the map when it comes to playback? Some allow simultaneous playback, some don't, some have independent volume control, some force you to use the system volume, some won't play in the background, some will... Are there any options to help me play two apps at once, with independent volume control?


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Rooted Moto E won't start Wi-Fi
i did a hard reset on my rooted Moto E android device since the Wi-fi was not somehow turning on. Now it has rebooted, and after entering the preferred language, its got stuck on the second step : Select Wi-Fi, and shows the text "turning Wi-Fi on...". ( the same problem for which I did a hard reset in the first place). Why is the reboot stuck at this point and what can I do about it?

Can u post a pic of Ur WiFi select screen or give some more information.
Since u have rooted your phone, u can boot into recovery and try to wipe dalvik cache and factory reset.
Hope it solves your WiFi problem if not,then it might be a hardware issue.

I tried the recovery mode - I chose the option 'wipe data and reboot. But after the reboot, its the same situation. I don't know how I can post an image in this comment

Since u have rooted,which recovery have u added, if it is Philz or cwm recovery then go to advanced -> wipe dalvik cache. Try installing another rom and see if the problem still persist.

Its cwm recovery. I wiped the dalvik cache, did a factory reset, and tried installing the one of the latest condor ROMs - however, the message I get is 'installation aborted' because 'could not detect filesystem for /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/system. assuming ext4

cwm recovery,wiped dalvik cache, did factory reset, & tried installing the latest condor ROMs - however, the message I get is "installation aborted' because 'could not detect filesystem for /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/system. assuming ext4   mount: failed to mount /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/system at /system: No such file or directory  unmount of /system failed; no such volume patching system image unconditionally.... E1001: Failed to update system image. E:unknown command[log] E:Error in /storage/sdcard1/lineage-14.1-20170620-nightly-condor-signed.zip (status 7) Installation aborted"

see this link.     https://forum.xda-developers.com/moto-e/orig-development/rom-cyanogenmod-14-moto-e-t3460506/page101


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F-Droid keeps downloading apps that were installed from other stores
F-Droid, again and again, downloads updates for an app that is installed via another (namely Play) store.
Obviously, it cannot be installed because of different signatures.
How can I get F-Droid to ignore foreign-store apps?

For these common apps-  In F-Droid, open the info page of an app in question, click on the 3-pointed menu and select to ignore all updates for this app.

Source
Edit: Thanks to input from BubullC this feature is incorporated in the latest version of F-droid. I haven't verified it but adding it for benefit of future vistors

this works - thank you! but it would be great if F-Droid would recognize by itself that it is not responsible for these apps

Maybe suggest that in F-Droid forums, of not done already ? I didn't check

@vlad_tepesch It does now, since version 1.0 :-)

@BubuIIC- Thanks for the input. Haven't verified it but will add to the answer with credits to you