text:
Determine android:installLocation in Play Store BEFORE install
I'm familiar with moving apps from internal to external memory. In fact I have to with the limited internal memory I have.
Some apps don't allow that. I know it's the android:installLocation line.  I try to avoid the apps that don't allow moving to the external memory. The only way I know is to install it, and try to move it. Seems like an impractical method to me.
So, the question is: Is there a way to determine this setting before installing?
Specs if needed.
Phone: Samsung Galaxy S5, SM-G900V, Android ver 6.0.1, not rooted.
Computer: Windows 10 Pro.

Do you mean download the apk file, unpack it, and read the file in a text viewer? Still learning about all of this?

You will need to examine the app manifest on PC to determine if the app can / cannot be moved to external SD card
Manifest declarations that determine this are explained in  my answer here App can't be moved to SD Card , Option not available. To summarize

Only if android:installLocation is set to auto or preferExternal it can be moved to external SD

For more details on reading the manifest file on PC see this SO question


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Micro SD Card causing Problem in Tablet
Device: Pipo N7 MT8163
Android 7.0
I am using a Micro SD Card (128GB) in my tablet. As far as I know the device is supposed to be able to handle this card. The tablet recognizes it without a problem. What I am experiencing is, that I find different areas of the tablet malfunctioning. for example I can't download or install new apps while the card is mounted in the tablet. If I unmount/eject it then I'm fine.
I also find that most of the time I can't delete data or cache in the Settings -> Apps. Even when I can delete it doesn't update the data and chache amounts.
Usually when you go to the apps in settings it shows under each app the amount of space the app is taking. When my card is mounted I don't get this info.
These are only a couple of the problems I seem to have. As soon as I eject the card all goes back to normal.
I have tried to google this problem but wasn't able to find anything related to my problem.
Please if someone can advise on what I can do

I had a similar problem. I couldn't get to the root cause but I copied the contents to PC, bought another SD card and copied from PC and it worked fine. Strangely, the original SD card worked fine on other devices and is in use till date.

This didn't help.with the second card I have the same problem.

In that case, I suspect a hardware issue but to make sure it is only hardware, I would suggest factory reset (after saving data). If it continues after factory reset, more likely hardware

When I do a factory reset it helps for a little while and then it goes back to giving me problems. This is the reason I'm thinking it may be that the device can't handle such a big card.

Big card could be one reason - you would need to check with a smaller card and also see the phone specs to see what's the maximum size supported.

As I mentioned in the question as far as I know it should support 128GB cards. Its a little bit hard to find decent info on these China devices.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How to reset an unknown Google account?
how do I reset a google acct if the info is unknown. I was given a Samsung G7 phone. but I don't know the google email or password. Im wanting to reset it & add my google information to it.

What do you mean by "reset" here? Do you mean to remove that account from the device? If not, then resetting an unknown account's credentials  is something we don't support (because the account can be misused later) and neither it is on-topic here (Android independent).

There's an anonymous suggested edit that conflicts with the original revision: The OP was given a Samung G7, and the editor claimed they lost it.

If you are able to open the mobile
To remove old Account

Go to settings -> Accounts -> Google or settings -> sync -> Google depending on your system
Tap on the account you want to remove
Tap more -> remove account

To Add New Account

Go to settings -> Accounts or settings -> sync depending on your system
Click Add Account
Select Google and add your google account.

You can also add new google account from gmail app.
Hope this helps.

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


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Autofill location on Google Calendar
How do I get the location to autofill when I begin to enter a place in Google Calendar on my Moto E4 Plus?

Welcome. If you are using the Google Calendar app instead of a web browser, the question is off-topic on this site but it could be on-topic on [android.se].

Fixed this problem in Chrome.
Problem: addresses in a Calendar event no longer autofilling.
Fixed it like this:
Went to Chrome Settings (Chrome, the three vertical dots in top right corner, not Calendar Settings).
Then chose "Autofill", clicked "Addresses and more", and turned on "Save and fill addresses".
Seems to work now.


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App from Hockeyapp won't install even though Unknown sources is allowed
I am getting a weird error, only in 1 of my phones. I am using Hockeyapp to distribute and test apps and it works fine in every other mobile device. In Oneplus 3 (A3003; Android 8.0.0; OxygenOS version 5.0.6) though, when I try to install an app from Hockeyapp I get the message that I need to enable 'Unknown sources'.

After I press APP SETTINGS I am taken to the unkown sources screen where Hockeyapp is selected, just like the image below.

If I go back in Hockeyapp and try to install the app again, I still get the same error message. I tried to clean install Hockeyapp, change manually the unknown sources but nothing changes. I repeat that this only happens in this Oneplus device.
How can I solve this and install the app that I want from Hockeyapp?
Edit: I uninstalled Hockeyapp, installed it again and explicitly granted that permission. I still get the same error!

@beeshyams I am going to settings--> apps --> special access--> install unknown apps and I see that Hockeyapp is allowed. Are you suggesting to do a different thing that what I am describing?

This happened to be a problem to Solid Explorer in my OnePlus 6. I had to reinstall that application from scratch. Furthermore, I then granted that permission explicilty from Settings app instead of waiting for that app to ask. I don't know if this would work, but might be worth a try.

@Firelord I tried that. Uninstalled Hockeyapp, installed it again and explicitly granted permission. I get the same error!


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How to take full image backup of partitions or eMMC?
I have an Archos 55 Platinum here. There is also a unofficial TWRP, if this might help.
I would like to make a backup of the storage of the phone, like dd for any partition, so I can inspect the content later.
Also, I don't want to root or flash anything, nor install apps.
Is there a way that allows me to run TWRP via fastboot instead of flashing? Any ideas how I can proceed?

@IrfanLatif isn't that an answer? Note that at least when on Linux, you can also use adb exec-out dd if=/dev/block/(bootdevice/)mmcblk0 > mmcblk0.img to store the images directly on your computer instead of on the Android device. TWRP has ADB enabled.

Yes you can boot in TWRP if bootloader is unlocked:
fastboot boot /path/to/twrp.img

Then you can simply dd whole eMMC or individual partitions. You need some  extra memory (on external SD card) to backup whole eMMC or /data partition. Smaller partitions (including the biggest one: system) can be backed up to internal memory i.e. data partition.
For Qualcomm SoC:
(for MTK devices, path is slightly different)
dd if=/dev/block/(bootdevice/)mmcblk0 of=/path/to/external-sd/emmc-backup

For single partition:
dd if=/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata of=/path/to/external-sd/data-backup

In order to come up with shortage of space, instead of using SD Card you may save backup files directly to PC using adb shell or exec-out. Thanks to @Izzy:
adb exec-out dd if=/dev/block/(bootdevice/)mmcblk0 > emmc-backup.img

Make sure your adb binary (on Windows or Linux) supports exec-out. Also take care that unwanted non-printing terminal characters don't get included in output.
There are also other methods like adb pull, UMS or streaming over network. For details see How to recover a deleted file from /data partition?
PS:
Another way to save space and to speed up backup process is to backup only the contents of mountable filesystems instead of whole partition image. Particularly userdata and system are larger partitions but they aren't usually completely filled. Mount them and create backup archive using tar so that zeroed out portion of these partitions isn't backed up.
Make sure to preserve all file permissions and attributes (whatever applicable depending on filesystem etc.) including classic UNIX file mode and owner, ACLs, XATTRs and SELinux contexts.   These options are supported by tar. Otherwise things might get messed up. See more details in How to stream an encrypted backup of the entire device to remote host?

RELATED:

How disk space is partitioned in an Android phone?
Why can't I see Android storage as a partition on PC?
Is there any way to recover data from 2nd SD partition?

Based on this question I did use the method described above:
~$ adb exec-out dd if=/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata > data.img

But there is an issue, the image will be encrypted if the data is not decrypted first. File and folder names will be gibberish.
The only way I got decrypted data was via TWRP, because it asks for decryption password on start.
And then I was able to copy the data via mtp.
I know this may not seem on topic on how to recover files, but this question is getting a lot of traffic and the proposed solution has a drawback and I'm not allowed to comment right now.


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Linux on Dex - Can you install additional programs? R? Vim?
Linux on Dex is on an Arm processor, not Intel processor. Does this mean I can't install most normal programs? If you have Linux on Dex could you try and install these two programs, run them, and confirm this will work? I know it just came out, but would like to know before laying out a grand on a Samsung Galaxy Note 9.
R Statistical Package
apt-get update
apt-get install r-base
R

Vim Editor
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install vim
vim new_project.c

And to quit Vim press Esc then press :. The cursor should appear at the lower left corner of the screen beside a colon prompt. Enter the following q! and Vim will quit.

Just read what it says on their website. Quoting: "packages (apps and programs) must be built for ARM 64-bit and must comply with Android security policy". I see no further restrictions. So if there are builds of r and vim available meeting those conditions, they should run.

Both of these Linux packages load and run fine on Dex (Note 9):
R:

vim:

That's great news! Is there anyway to reach you offline so we can trade some notes on Linux on Dex?

As long as an app has an ARM compiled project then it should run just fine on Note 9. Lots of apps however aren't compiled for ARM. So you'll either need to compile them yourself to ARM or you'll need to contact the developers and ask them to compile it for ARM.

By the way Linux on DeX has been cancelled by Samsung time ago; before the update to Android 10.


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Something eating CPU on Sony XPeria XZ, how to find out what it is?
I have two Sony Xperia XZ devices, bought both very recently in UK as used-with-warranty. One is working great, but the other (which has a 3 logo come up when booting) apparently has something using CPU all the time. Why I think so:

Phone is warm even when not used
CPU-Z and the like show frequency not falling under 1200 MHz, and usually over 1400 - while the other has it hovering under 1000 and sometimes hitting 330.
Antutu and especially GeekBench 4 results are worse than the "good" phone

So how can I catch the "perpetrator" and get rid of it? AVG and MalwareBytes scans find nothing. And the phone behaved like it was just factory-reset when I started it, so I'm not sure a factory reset would be of much help.

Use htop commandline tool to view resources usage at runtime. Or use GSAM Battery Monitor to view complete battery usage statistics.

Use ADB and its logcat feature to see log of system and activity of processes.
Also you use adb shell top to see processes and consumptions


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Display bound manipulation on an android device, to avoid faulty touchscreen area
I have a Oneplus 3T on which, the digitizer would not register a touch on the bottom 1cm of the display. I tried the adb shell wm overscan 0,0,0,100 command to set display margins, and it breaks a lot of apps (even after restart). The margin seems to scale differently to different apps. So, I used the adb shell wm size 1080x1820 (original resolution: 1080x1920) command to set the height 100px less. Unfortunately, it shrunk to the middle, and there are 50px padding on the bottom as well as the top. But, all the apps are working well. Is there a way to shift ("translate") the display upwards on y-axis 50px, so that all the extra padding is on the bottom? If not, are there any other ways to achieve the same intention (to shrink the display to the usable area)? I can't find any comprehensive list of all the adb commands anywhere...
PS: I've tried activating on-screen navigation to offset the display, but on Oxygen OS 5.0.3, it also disabled the hardware buttons.
Edit:
The instructions I followed were from these questions question 1 & question 2. But it didn't help.
Edit 2:
Current device display configuration:

Here are a few screenshots to show what went wrong with the adb shell wm overscan 0,0,0,100 method. There is an empty space at the bottom of each of these app windows and they are different for each of them as well.

Did you correct the display density after using overscan command? I  once noticed that not correcting it caused some apps to crash.

The problem after the overscan method was odd. The actual margin of 100px is just about 6-7mm at the bottom of the screen. But in each of the app, the margin seems to be at different height from bottom. When I open Whatsapp, there was a 1cm blank white area at the bottom additional to the 100px overscan. But in the OOS settings, that white area was just 5mm. It seems to me that the margin is scaled differently to different apps. PS> I did always use custom font & dpi for the phone. Is there a particular criteria that I need to know calculating the dpi?

I don't have a criteria either. I used trial and error to find a DPI that could work with changes made with overcan, back when I posted that answer. BTW, you might want to look into logcat's output to get more info on why the apps are crashing.

The apps aren't crashing, just the bottom bounds of the active region of the apps are a little higher than expected.


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How to fix LG Tribute stuck at 0% on "Firmware Update"?
My parents bought me an LG Tribute from the store. Suddenly, it is stuck on a screen saying "Firmware update", and is stuck at 0%.
I have seen people saying to remove the battery, but if I do that, I cannot turn the phone back on, because my power button has stopped working over a week ago. Does anyone know how to fix this?


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How to unlock my device after blocking with "Find my device"?
I lost my phone in a taxi and blocked it using Find My Device. I managed to get it back but now it has a button to call my home and a lock icon, but won't unlock.

You must restart your phone. Turn it off. When you turn it on again you'll be able to enter your password.
Update: after doing this, it will lock again. You must really login again using your account in "Find my Device". The option is somewhat hidden in the suspension points button. See:

Maybe you don't need to restart your phone after login in "Finde My Device". The restart allows you to enter your device with your password, but sometime latter it will be blocked again. You must really go to the "Find My Device" web page.

Do you need to go to the Find My Device webpage on the mobile itself or the computer? Regardless, neither of these methods stop the notifications from coming.

I cleared the storage on my Google Play Services app and that seemed to fix it (clear storage not clear cache).

@kennyB I used Find My Device webpage from my desktop computer

I saw text message notifications on my screen. All I did was tap it and it then prompted me for my phone access password. I entered the password and my phone opened up as per normal. It was just chance I tried this after having no success in the Find My Device app.
The suggestion above about turning the phone off and on again could work if it then prompts you for your password. If you have no password not sure what wold happen. Worth a try!
This worked for me! How good is Find My Device. I left my Samsung phone on a bus from Mt Buller to Mansfield at night. I think it fell out of my pocket when I changed seats in the dark!  googled Find my Device on my home PC once I got home (when I realised i did not have it after driving from Mansfield to Melb)). OMG!   I could see on the location map it had gone back up the mountain to Buller late at night. I locked it and left my email address and husband's phone number to call. The bus driver called the number which appeared on my phone screen to call. Lucky for me a friend was catching a bus down the mountain the next day. I organised for the bus line to give it to her and to ask her for ID so no one else could claim it. They called her to arrange it. Thank you MMBL bus lines and shuttle service! I now have back my phone all intact. I felt happy as soon as I could locate it and lock it at least knowing that no one cold use it and I had a chance of getting it back if it fell in the right hands! I would have even driven up there again just to get it or have someone post it as registered mail and reimburse them or I think you get get reverse charge post so you pay when pick it up from a post office.
If you have no messages try asking someone to send a text message to see if it appears on your screen then tap it open. The you can access the messages if you put in your password and the phone will open up as normal and you can then access everything.
Tip: "Location" must be turned 'on' on your phone for Find My Device to work. You can do this in the pull down screen. If lost google "android device manager" or "find my device" from a pc or someone else's device. When you see your phone located on the map take a photo or screenshot of your pc screen with someone else's phone and that photo showing it's location could be sent to someone else to help locate it, even the police, if someone has stolen your device.


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Battery shuts down at 25%
I've read that battery calibration apps are only a placebo effect and they do nothing. Is this true? What to do if your phone suddenly shuts down at 25%?

Need new battery is most likely reason.

Battery calibration being a myth was asked here Bought a new battery, do I need to calibrate it? - incidentally by you :-), so yes to repeat, it's a myth (see Izzy's answer that stressed this)
To address shutting down at 25%:

If the battery is old or heavily used I would first change the battery
Check if the behavior persists in safe mode. If it does go to next step. If it doesn't it's caused by some app you installed (unlikely)
Do factory-reset. If it continues, flash stock ROM (updated if available) or custom ROM
If none of these help head to service center get an estimate and choose between repair or replacement of the device

Funny you're also in the old question :-)

Yes. I was waiting for you to say that :-)


text:
How can a third party app run in safe mode?
I had a problem with my phone restarting at random, and it all started when I asked a third party app, FX File Explorer, to carry out a task (searching for duplicate files). So I duly rebooted the phone in safe mode.
The phone crashed on reboot, but with a cache wipe I was able to start it again and it was verifiably in Safe Mode.
FX File Explorer was absent from the home screen as expected and absent from the app list. I tried to force it to stop through app manager, but the phone just hangs, tried to uninstall it but with the same problem.
Moving back to another task using the recent apps list (Overview screen), I noticed that FX File Explorer had a window in that list. I touched on it and it opened, a fully functioning app. I thought safe mode was supposed to disable third party apps?
Firstly, how does FX File Explorer get to be still running even in safe mode?
Secondly, how do I stop it? Force stop just hangs forever until the phone restarts, uninstall just hangs forever. The phone appears to be working fine until I actually ask it to do anything (open an app, uninstall anything etc) then it just hangs. Being fairly sure it's FX File Explorer that's causing the problem, I need to stop it, but nothing seems to be able to get to it.

If that doesn't help try Firelord's solution https://android.stackexchange.com/q/129427/131553

@beeshyams I appreciate the pointer. It's not a device administrator (I managed to check that), but I can't do anything with Google Play because all apps just hang when I ask them to do anything significant. I really don't know enough to follow the answer you've linked, but will have a go if all else fails.

@beeshyams Just to confirm, I can't do anything with USB connection because "USB connectivity is not responding". Like everything other app, it just hangs when I ask anything of it.

Bit drastic because you will lose data but doing a factory reset comes to mind

@beeshyams Yes, I think it's coming to that. Although I'm half expecting to get "Factory Reset is not responding. Would you like to close it?". I can't even do a software repair from the PC because USB connectivity won't work. I can't believe everything can go from completely fine to completely screwed in the space of one action.

You may like to wait for some other suggestions


text:
How to change sync frequency in Outlook app?
By default Outlook for Android gets the emails immediately when they are received (push).
Is there a way to set the sync frequency either individually for each email account or at least globally ?
If it matters, my email accounts are all Exchange ones.
On the stock email app (Samsung) it is possible to choose the sync frequency and even set manual syncing, but I can't find any similar option in Outlook for Android.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to change the frequency of emails sync using Outlook for Android (see the thread Set sync frequency and quiet times on outlook app).
From the link above:

There are no such settings in the Outlook or OWA apps from the play store

Outlook for Android users have requested the feature on Uservoice. However, it has not been yet implemented (as of Nov. 2018).
If you are using an another app to check your Exchange emails (I use the Gmail app) then it is possible to change the sync frequency.

Thanks, guess I'll change back to an app that allow to change the sync frequency then.

Maybe soon, Microsoft will listen to the users and add this important feature.

That Uservoice page is now a 404. :(

@stack Microsoft decided to shutdown their uservoice forum in 2021 https://www.onmsft.com/news/microsoft-has-quietly-shut-down-its-office-365-uservoice-forums-more-to-come

It looks like this feature has been added to the Android Outlook app: https://supertekboy.com/2018/07/21/do-not-disturb-in-outlook-mobile/

No quite. The Do not disturb is different from sync frequencies that you can set on other apps (15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, etc). If for example, you set the do not disturb for 1  hour, after it completes, incoming email will be received immediately. They will not wait for another 1 hour.

Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.

@ReddyLutonadio While I acknowledge you're correct that do not disturb is different than custom sync frequency, I feel it accomplishes what many would ultimately be looking for in such a feature, which is to avoid intrusions from the app during specified times. This is what I was looking for, at least.

It's also semi-hidden in the app, not appearing in settings despite being a setting, so I was glad to find a resource to point me in the right direction.


text:
How to determine the cause behind various apps freezing, including system apps?
I understand if this is too broad a question, but on the off-chance there is at least a broad category of problems anyone could point me to...
I've had a problem with the phone after asking a third party file managing app (FX File Explorer) to look for duplicate files (usually quite a long operation). It failed to complete, and since then nothing has been working on the phone and it keeps restarting. The weird thing is (or at least weird in my experience). It hasn't frozen or crashed. It's just that everything seems to be finding it hard to do anything. It's exactly the same in safe mode.
I turned on some developer tools (CPU indicator and notification for unresponsive apps). I don't really know what the CPU indicator is showing me (having no point of reference), but it spiked very quickly one time to cover almost the whole screen then calmed down to sit about a quarter along, so I'm presuming CPU usage is far from full. The unresponsive app notification is more telling as every minute or so a new app comes up with "... is not responding. Would you like to close it?". Basically everything is not responding.
I also tried checking running apps and cached processes, the third party app is not still running, just the usual set of background Google apps.
I can't do any USB debugging or software repair because "USB connectivity is not responding". I can't uninstall or re-install anything because "Settings is not responding" and "Google Play is not responding". I can't even use certain developer tools because many of those are "...not responding"
I realise this means I'm probably out of options, but before a factory reset (or the bin!) I'd just like to try and understand what could have happened. At least I could possibly avoid it next time.
Just to add - I've just done a Factory Reset. The problem is still there, apps don't respond, I can't uninstall anything, USB connection doesn't respond (or does respond but keeps dropping out) and after a while it will spontaneously restart. How on earth can one operation do this to a phone?

Malware is the only thing I can think of

@beeshyams Scary! Even after a factory reset?

Yes. Some stubborn malware get elevated privileges which make them reside in /system , which makes factory reset useless ( I am not clear how exactly they do that). Only option left is to flash  stock / custom ROM

@beeshyams Oh dear. I will look into those two options then. Thanks again for your help.

Welcome. Please post your solution once resolved. May help others

Which Android device and Android version are you using? Can you link that third party app you used, post which, this issue started to bug you? I'm afraid, as beeshyams noted, this is most likely a system level malware, but an analysis won't hurt to prevent this problem in future.  Is the device rooted or bootloader unlocked btw?

@Firelord Sony Xperia Z2 on Android 6 (I think). I didn't want to necessarily tarnish the reputation of the app that started it all in case I was wrong about identifying it as the cause. It's a really popular app so I doubt there's anything seriously wrong with it. I don't really know much about these things, but don't you actually have to download malware on Android? I don't think I downloaded anything I only use this device for mapping, communication and browsing the news/weather. It would have to be a seriously cunning bit of malware to hide in any of the tasks this phone is put to.

... no, I wasn't rooted or bootloader unlocked (not knowing what either were at the time), but it is now. I finally have it working again after unlocking the bootloader and flashing a new ROM, at least I think that's what I did. When I've caught up with all the work that I'm now two days behind on, I can post the exact process if anyone thinks it will be helpful, it was quite Herculean.

I'm glad you managed to fix the device on your own. Yes, please do post an answer whenever you can. :-)

Well, after a week of working perfectly well, it's started doing the same thing again, really slow, apps not responding, restarting at random. Given this is a completely wiped phone with a new stock ROM, I'm presuming I can rule out malware? So what's left? It's an older phone, have Sony started to deliberately slow them down with updates like Apple and Samsung did?


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What are "minuhome.Black.[...]" apps?
I've downloaded an app locker on my Samsung Galaxy Note 8, and as I was trying to import apps to the locker, on category "M" of the app list comes out a lot of Android icons with the file name of minuhome.Black.[...].

What are these apps? Am I being hacked?

Based on googling "minuhome", looks like it's Samsung Galaxy's launcher/theme app.

Minu is one of the themers who makes Samsung themes. Those are all the overlays for every package that the theme themes. If you want to removee them you'll have to remove the theme, but they're all small and they don't contain any code at all, just resources (XMLs, PNGs, voctors, etc.)


text:
How can I make a symlink (or equivalent) inside /storage/emulated/0?
So, I have rooted my phone (GT-i9505 with android 5.0.1) and I would like to move my WhatsApp folder to my external SD card to save 3GB on internal storage. This is what I tried so far.
EDIT: solution found
So, after all the option #2 seemed to be the right one, but it needed some tweaks to make it work. As suggested by Irfan Latif , the problem was that the mount point has to be created in a global mount namespace, otherwise other apps will not see it, so the commands to use are:
su -mm
mount -o bind /data/sdext2/AppData/WhatsAppMedia /sdcard/WhatsApp/Media

But that may not be enough! It still didn't work until I made sure that the namespace of root was global. To do that I don't know any universal way, but what worked for me was going in the SuperSU app settings and uncheck the option mount namespace separation.
That really depends on the SU app that you have installed.
Option 1: symlink
The first thing that I thought was to make a symlink, so that was the command that I used:
ln -s "/data/sdext2/AppData/WhatsAppMedia" "/sdcard/WhatsApp/Media"

I had already created a second partition on my external SD card (ext4) that is mounted in /data/sdext2
However that returns operation not permitted when using the terminal emulator (yes I did su) and an error with any root file manager app that I tried.
After some research I figured out that for some reason, although /storage/emulator/0 is in an ext partition, it is treated in a differente way so that it doesn't support symlink inside (correct me if I'm wrong).
So, onto the next thing
Option 2: mount
According to this question, the following command should mount the folder on external SD card in another folder in the internal SD card, without the need for a symlink
mount -o bind "/data/sdext2/AppData/WhatsAppMedia" "/sdcard/WhatsApp/Media"

However, while running the command doesn't return any error the folder in /sdcard/WhatsApp/Media is still empty, so I don't really know how to handle this.
Option 3: symlink in /data/media/
I followed the instructions on this post and made the symlink in /data/media/0 instead of storage, so using this command:
ln -s "/data/sdext2/AppData/WhatsAppMedia" "/data/media/0/WhatsApp/Media"

This time the link is created! However ...
Although an ls in /data/media/0/WhatsApp/Media revealed that the link was successful, cd /sdcard/WhatsApp/Media returns a very irritating no such file or directory and that is confirmed by the file explorer that shows an empty folder with a blank file icon.
My thoughts
First of all, I now discovered that I really hate android. Now, stated this, here's what I think might help doing:

moving my sdcard files somewhere else: if the rest of the root filesystem supports symlink (which it seems like it does), I might even move the folder /storage/emulated/0 somewhere else and make a new link to it, but I don't know if that would solve the problem

That's it for now, I will update with more options when I think about them...

ANDROID STORAGE:
On Android 5:
/sdcard >S> /storage/emulated/legacy >S> /mnt/shell/emulated/0
/mnt/shell/emulated >E> /data/media

On Android 6+:
# USER-ID of current user in case of multiple users, normally "0"

# for apps
# VIEW is one of "read" or "write" and /storage to VIEW bind mount is inside a separate mount namespace for every app
/sdcard >S> /storage/self/primary
/storage/self >B> /mnt/user/USER-ID
/mnt/user/USER-ID/primary >S> /storage/emulated/USER-ID
/storage/emulated >B> /mnt/runtime/VIEW/emulated
/mnt/runtime/VIEW/emulated >E> /data/media

# for services/daemons/processes in root namespace
/sdcard >S> /storage/self/primary
/storage >B> /mnt/runtime/default
/mnt/runtime/default/self/primary >S> mnt/user/0/primary
/mnt/user/0/primary >S> /storage/emulated/0
/storage/emulated >B> /mnt/runtime/default/emulated
/mnt/runtime/default/emulated >E> /data/media

>S> for symlink, >E> for emulated and >B> for bind mount
In short, /sdcard points to /data/media/0 through FUSE or sdcardfs emulation. This is to restrict unauthorized access of apps/processes to private media on SD card. Read Android's Storage Journey.
SYMLINKS:
Now /sdcard is not a real but emulated storage which represents a FAT/vFAT/FAT32 filesystem (for backward compatibility and permission management) which doesn't support symlinks (and other things including *NIX permissions and ioctls like FS_IOC_FIEMAP). So the Option 1 and 3 of yours won't work whether you create symlink directly on emulated storage or try to emulate the symlink already created on ext4.
BIND MOUNT:
This is the commonly used alternate of symlink for FAT family of filesystems. What you have tried in Option 2 should work. This is what apps like Apps2SD do. But there is again a constraint: mount namespace. You need to bind mount in global/root mount namespace so that the mount is visible to all apps:
su -mm -c 'mount -o bind "/data/sdext2/AppData/WhatsApp Media" "/sdcard/WhatsApp/Media"'

On Android 6+ this needs to be bind mounted on each VIEW (default, read, write) separately for all apps to work.
You can make it permanent by setting Mount Namespace Mode to Global in Magisk or by disabling Mount Namespace Separation in SuperSU. For details see this answer.

RELATED:

What is "/storage/emulated/0"?
How to bind mount a folder inside /sdcard with correct permissions?

Install MiXplorer from this XDA thread here → browse to the path using MiXplorer → click on + at the bottom → choose "Create symbolic link".


text:
Stream audio source to hearing aids
I just started wearing hearing aids (ReSound LiNX Quattro). My audiologist says that the Android developers are working on a solution that would allow me to stream audio content (music, calls, etc.) directly to my hearing aids. I am surprised that IOS has allowed this for years and Android doesn't have it yet.
Presently, my hearing aid app silently connects to my aids via Bluetooth and allows me to control them. I am able to use the Bluetooth control panel to pair the phone (LG Stylo 3) to the aids, but then my app can't pair to them. Even when the phone is paired to the aids, I can't stream audio to them.
What is the status of this feature for Android? Will it be rolled out as part of a new version of the OS (such as Q or R)?

So from what I can determine:

Google announced native support for hearing aids with a specification called ASHA
Based on this article on XDA Developers, it appears that only Pixel devices are enabled in AOSP, but that doesn't mean that manufacturers can't enable it for their own devices.
Looking at the ASHA specification it looks like a new service on top of the Bluetooth Low Energy specification with additional implementation details for Bluetooth 5.

So what does this mean to the average user:

Google Pixel devices with Android P and up would be the first set of devices which would support the ASHA protocol.
Hearing aid manufacturers would need to support it via a software update or would need to release devices with compatible Bluetooth chipsets/firmware.
Bluetooth support has always been a problematic area for Android (just search for pairing/disconnect issues in your favorite search engine) due to the variety of Bluetooth radio chips used by manufacturers.

So what should you do if you are looking for this feature:

Wait for your hearing aid manufacturer to officially announce which devices and phones are supported as they would have done the testing to make sure the feature work. If you have both that means it should work. If you have a non-listed phone that has Android P and up, and you have a hearing aid with the new software, it may work or it may not.


text:
Can a TWRP Wipe Delete SD Card Data That I've Explicitly Excluded?
I've got several years of experience rooting, flashing, and even recovering Android phones from severe hangups, but today I'm befuddled as to why I seem to have lost all of my data on the external SD card of a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 (GT-N7100) running LineageOS 14.1 (t03g).
Is the file system for an Android phone somehow integrated with the file system of the SD card such that a System wipe would affect the SD card? If so, then I guess there must be a difference between an SD card formatted on my PC as opposed to having it formatted in the phone itself whereby deleting/wiping the phone's System volume can also cause the SD card to be wiped. I've never had this happen before and the only difference I can recall is that this time I had formatted this SD card on the phone instead of doing it on the PC.
WHAT I DID:
I made sure to copy all the data files that I wanted to keep onto the SD card (/external_sdcard) using the File Manager in TWRP 3.0.2 before wiping everything on the phone except the card (I chose to wipe Data, System, Cache, and Dalvik). I was getting ready to flash LineageOS ROM (t0lte) on the phone from the SD card. However, it appears that all the files I had dutifully transferred to the SD card are no more! When I visit /external_sdcard via TWRP, everything's gone! I took the card out and checked it on my PC and indeed, the PC says the card needs to be formatted!
Did I miss something? Did I inadvertently forfeit my SD card data by wiping the phone the way I did?

I have the same device though not in active use and I flashed several ROMs. This never happened to me unless you inadvertently chose the option to wipe extSD (if there is such a setting)

Reading again, you said you excluded ext. SD so it shouldn't have happened, unless you thought you did but didn't

I am 100% sure I excluded the Micro SD Card option.

Then it's a freak thing. Nothing as expected. You can repeat it to test

I'd say, next time you come across an issue like this, do not reboot but check and backup the TWRP logs. This might still be relevant regarding that: https://rootzwiki.com/topic/24120-how-to-get-a-log-from-twrp/

But after moving my files to /external_sdcard, I even went back and confirmed they had been placed there by navigating to that folder and its subfolders with the TWRP File Manager. They were there! I even rebooted once back into the existing installation of LineageOS and saw my internal file storage space had increased dramatically because I had moved the files over to the SD card. Everything looked good. I'm not giving up on this SD card yet! I'll see what I can recover with the SanDisk data recovery utility.


text:
How can my employer change my Andriod security settings?
I got the following email from my employer:

Passwords required on all mobile devices
In order to protect College data stored on portable devices, from
  Tuesday 20 November ICT will enable a feature which requires all
  mobile devices (Android, iOS phones and tablets) used to access
  College emails to be protected with either a PIN password or biometric
  recognition, such as fingerprint or face recognition. This applies to
  all portable devices, whether College or personally owned.
At a minimum, ICT will enforce the use of a PIN for access to the
  device. Devices that do not meet the minimum requirement will be
  prevented from accessing College email accounts until the device has
  been appropriately secured.
You can manage your security settings from the ‘settings’ menu of your
  device. Please get in touch with the Service Desk if you have problems
  doing this. If you do not wish to secure your device, then you may not
  be able to access your College email account from your

Is there a feature in Android that I don't know about that will enable them to change the settings on my phone?
EDIT The Plot Thickens
On my way to work this morning popped up on my phone screen when I tried to check my meetings for the day.

Now I am worried. I don't want to give my work admin access to my personal phone. What will they be able to do? Delete my emails? Reset the phone? Lock me out of the phone? Track my location?
I can see how this is fine on devices supplied by an employer but it normal for personal devices.

Firstly, if you add information and seek clarification based on new inputs, it is best done as a separate question linking the original. People who answered it earlier will NOT be notified. I happened to see this because of comments on the other answer. Please bear that in mind :-)

Sorry. I am not 100% sure how stack exchange works. Thanks for the tip. I will try a sperate question

Coming to your edit and the new concern- by itself device admin doesn't mean much. What you need to see is the permission asked by the app that is seeking device admin right. There is a question covering a very similar concern and explained in my answer here https://android.stackexchange.com/a/201669/131553

No problem at all. Our comments crossed. Your question is already answered and therefore will be marked duplicate if you ask:-). Check that and the permissions asked by the app you installed

Be sure to read the link in my answer too

Your employer is informing you of the security you need to implement on your device to access company mails / apps etc. This is a standard practice to endure that company confidential information is not compromised owing to your not having secure lock screen etc. They are not changing it for you. They are asking you to change it. Going by the screenshot, it's simple - agree to implement yourself those measures or not access college mails etc.
But, there are variations like BYOD / Company owned device etc, which can exercise far more control on your device. See here for details.
Edit:
From discussion on comments added a very useful input from Izzy. The app which you are installing to read the mail should not have device manager permission as only such apps can do a factory reset (aka Google Device Manager on case of stolen devices)

If your employer has installed a management app, then they can do a lot of things. There are many MDM (Mobile Device Management) products for all the platforms. (iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry, etc). .
If your email is done via ActiveSync, that protocol allows the mail client to manage device settings (With permissions, but with the permissions, it can do it) and to lock down security.
(MS Exchange, Office365, and GroupWise can all use ActiveSync for email, instead of IMAP/POP).

+1 you are right. They're more possibilities too including such as BYOD, company owned etc, which I linked in my answer. Essentially, they all at a minimum need device manager permission so kept that as a baseline for one to take a decision

@beeshyams I think you have hit the root core issue, the permissions needed.  Then there is the question of mechanism by which it is effected.  Now of interest is the question can you list owners of a particular permission?  I see questions on how to search by permissions on Play store. I am curious about contents of my device.

For common permissions I use this app. It doesn't show device manager and such permissions which you explicitly have to give and are usually accompanied by warning


text:
How to prevent a folder being backed up in Photos but still seen in a gallery app?
I am on Pixel 3 XL. I found that Google Photos recognizes the Facebook photo folder (and some others, such as Screenshots) the same as the "Camera" folder because they are within the DCIM folder. Therefore, we cannot tell Google Photos not to backup these folder within Google Photos settings.
The only option I have come across is to put a .nomedia file in the Facebook folder. That does prevent Google Photos from backing it up, but it also prevent me from seeing that folder in any other app. As you know, the Pixel does not include a traditional photo gallery, as they want you to use the google photos app so I use a photo gallery app from the play store. Either way with the .nomedia file in that folder I cannot see the images in that folder anywhere.
Is there any other way to stop Google Photos from backing up this folder without making the images invisible on my device? Google photos should not be treating all folders within DCIM as "Camera" and instead it should be looking specifically for the camera roll folder.
Related post: Change Facebook (and others) photo saving folder

You're not restricted by Google to use only Photos app as a Gallery app, so why not try a third-party app? I remembered that I used to use Piktures and QuickPic app and both of them (paid feature in Piktures), as I tested now, provides an option to show hidden or .nomedia file containing folders inside their settings. I'm sure some other gallery apps might be having a similar feature.

Use my beginner friendly Tasker project which I made based on this answer. I made some significant improvements that allow it to be used for many other scenarios beyond just moving Facebook's images, and included multiple examples within the project to learn from:

While the original version could detect if the file being moved already existed in the destination directory, it could only handle one iteration of the conflict. For example, if example.jpg were being moved, but it already existed, it would rename the file being moved to example(1).jpg. However, if example.jpg were being moved and both example.jpg and example(1).jpg already existed, it would simply overwrite example(1).jpg.

My version will run an iterative check on names which increments the suffix variable until a non-existing name is found. For example, if example.jpg is taken, it will check example(2).jpg. If that is taken, it will check example(3).jpg, and so on until an available name is found. It also correctly appends the first duplicate with (2) rather than (1).

The original version assumed the first "." in a file name was also the last "." before the extension. While this is fine for images from Facebook, it's not an ideal assumption, and breaks down when adopting the task for other uses, such as moving APKs. With the original, if com.example.app.apk already existed in the destination directory, trying to move a second copy of it would result in com(1).example.app.apk.

In addition to fixing the suffix and making it iterative, I've also changed the logic for its placement, such that it will always go before the last ".". In the above example, the apk would now be renamed to com.example.app(2).apk. This doesn't always work perfectly (consider .tar.gz and other similar cases for instance), but it does a good enough job without having to hard-code in every possible extension.

This appears to vary from device to device, but on my devices, the original version would leave behind broken references to images in gallery apps and other programs that utilize the media provider (most messaging apps that have an image selection UI) due to not correctly refreshing this data. This was not an issue for moving images out of a directory containing a .nomedia file, but caused issues if you wanted to use it in a directory where you didn't want or couldn't have a .nomedia file (such as automatically moving downloaded images out of /sdcard/Download/).

Tasker's Scan Media action seems to act in wildly different ways depending on not only the Android version, but also the vendor variant you're using. I've fixed the issue on my devices (and hopefully many of yours) by running a Scan Media action on not only the file in it's destination directory, but also on the original file path (referencing the file that's no longer there).

I also updated variable names for clarity, and rather than using events that trigger when entering or exiting apps, I've set it to run on a File Modified event monitoring the source folder, with the event set to Closed Write. This works for most purposes, but breaks in some cases. You can fix most issues by either using a different event parameter (such as Create, Modify, or Move To) or by using stricter regex in Action 3 of the task.

 I've heard that devices with slower storage (or slow external SD cards) can have issues with this if files take too long to write. In that case, you may have to experiment with adding delays or using different methods to trigger the task.

I'm attaching not just the task here, but the entire project I've created, containing multiple copies of the task for various use cases, and their respective profiles to trigger them, so that beginners who are new to Tasker can easily get started using this task and have some examples to reference when adopting the task to their own needs.
The examples included in this project are:

When Facebook downloads an image to /sdcard/DCIM/Facebook, move it to /sdcard/Pictures/Facebook.
When Samsung Notes saves an image to /sdcard/DCIM/Samsung Notes/, move it to /sdcard/Pictures/Samsung Notes/. (This works, but Samsung Notes will claim it failed to save the image, due to it checking for the image after it has already been moved by Tasker.)
When you create a GIF using Smart Select, move it from /sdcard/DCIM/GIF/ to /sdcard/Pictures/Smart Select GIFs/.
When you export an APK from ReVanced Manager to /sdcard/Download/APKs/Original/, move it to /sdcard/Download/APKs/Modded/.
When a new file is detected in /sdcard/Download/ . . .

if it's a download from Craiyon, move it to /sdcard/Pictures/Craiyon/
if it's an APK, APKM, APKS, or XAPK file, move it to /sdcard/Download/APKs/Original, unless it is base.apk (I leave that file in Download since I use it for other things.)

Remember to first create the source and destination directories before testing the examples. I also encourage you to check Action 3 in each example task (some of them use simple matching and others use regex) for a better understanding of how they work.
Now that that's out of the way, here's the project. You can import it directly to Tasker from there, or download it as an XML. If you choose to download it, save it in /sdcard/Tasker/projects/. You can then long press on the home icon on the bottom left corner of Tasker to import the project.
Unfortunately the entire XML is too long to post here directly, but for the sake of keeping this answer as complete as possible, I'm including the XML for just the Facebook task below. I strongly recommend that beginners import the entire project using the link above however, so you can get an idea of how to customize the task for your own needs.
The Facebook task:
<TaskerData sr="" dvi="1" tv="6.0.10">
    <Task sr="task3">
        <cdate>1489093858387</cdate>
        <edate>1677367714628</edate>
        <id>3</id>
        <nme>Move Facebook Images</nme>
        <pri>6</pri>
        <Kid sr="Kid">
            <launchID>3</launchID>
            <pkg>me.regalstreak.movefb</pkg>
            <vTarg>21</vTarg>
            <vnme>1.0</vnme>
        </Kid>
        <Action sr="act0" ve="7">
            547
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%sourcedir</Str>
            <Str sr="arg1" ve="3">/sdcard/DCIM/Facebook/</Str>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg5" val="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg6" val="0"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act1" ve="7">
            547
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%destdir</Str>
            <Str sr="arg1" ve="3">/sdcard/Pictures/Facebook/</Str>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg5" val="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg6" val="0"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act10" ve="7">
            37
            <ConditionList sr="if">
                <Condition sr="c0" ve="3">
                    <lhs>%fileexists</lhs>
                    <op>12</op>
                    <rhs></rhs>
                </Condition>
            </ConditionList>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act11" ve="7">
            547
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%currentfilename</Str>
            <Str sr="arg1" ve="3">%currentfilepath(%pathlen)</Str>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg5" val="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg6" val="0"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act12" ve="7">
            888
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%suffix</Str>
            <Int sr="arg1" val="1"/>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act13" ve="7">
            590
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%currentfilename</Str>
            <Str sr="arg1" ve="3">.</Str>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act14" ve="7">
            547
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%namelen</Str>
            <Str sr="arg1" ve="3">%currentfilename(#)</Str>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg5" val="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg6" val="0"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act15" ve="7">
            890
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%namelen</Str>
            <Int sr="arg1" val="1"/>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act16" ve="7">
            547
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%currentfilename(%namelen)</Str>
            <Str sr="arg1" ve="3">%currentfilename(%namelen)%null()(%suffix)</Str>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg5" val="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg6" val="0"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act17" ve="7">
            592
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%currentfilename</Str>
            <Str sr="arg1" ve="3">.</Str>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act18" ve="7">
            135
            <Int sr="arg0" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg1" val="10"/>
            <Str sr="arg2" ve="3"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act19" ve="7">
            38
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act2" ve="7">
            412
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%sourcedir</Str>
            <Str sr="arg1" ve="3">*.jpg/*.png/*.jpeg/*.gif/*.3gp</Str>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
            <Str sr="arg5" ve="3">%filelist</Str>
            <Int sr="arg6" val="1"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act20" ve="7">
            400
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%currentfilepath</Str>
            <Str sr="arg1" ve="3">%destdir%currentfilename</Str>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg3" val="1"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act21" ve="7">
            459
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%currentfilepath</Str>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act22" ve="7">
            459
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%destdir%currentfilename</Str>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act23" ve="7">
            888
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%counter</Str>
            <Int sr="arg1" val="1"/>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act24" ve="7">
            40
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act25" ve="7">
            37
            <ConditionList sr="if">
                <Condition sr="c0" ve="3">
                    <lhs>%counter</lhs>
                    <op>0</op>
                    <rhs>0</rhs>
                </Condition>
            </ConditionList>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act26" ve="7">
            548
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">No memes? Sad.</Str>
            <Int sr="arg1" val="0"/>
            <Str sr="arg10" ve="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg11" val="1"/>
            <Int sr="arg12" val="0"/>
            <Str sr="arg13" ve="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg14" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
            <Str sr="arg3" ve="3"/>
            <Str sr="arg4" ve="3"/>
            <Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
            <Str sr="arg6" ve="3"/>
            <Str sr="arg7" ve="3"/>
            <Str sr="arg8" ve="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg9" val="1"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act27" ve="7">
            43
            <ConditionList sr="if">
                <Condition sr="c0" ve="3">
                    <lhs>%counter</lhs>
                    <op>0</op>
                    <rhs>1</rhs>
                </Condition>
            </ConditionList>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act28" ve="7">
            548
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%counter meme moved!</Str>
            <Int sr="arg1" val="0"/>
            <Str sr="arg10" ve="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg11" val="1"/>
            <Int sr="arg12" val="0"/>
            <Str sr="arg13" ve="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg14" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
            <Str sr="arg3" ve="3"/>
            <Str sr="arg4" ve="3"/>
            <Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
            <Str sr="arg6" ve="3"/>
            <Str sr="arg7" ve="3"/>
            <Str sr="arg8" ve="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg9" val="1"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act29" ve="7">
            43
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act3" ve="7">
            547
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%suffix</Str>
            <Str sr="arg1" ve="3">1</Str>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg5" val="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg6" val="0"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act30" ve="7">
            548
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%counter memes moved!</Str>
            <Int sr="arg1" val="0"/>
            <Str sr="arg10" ve="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg11" val="1"/>
            <Int sr="arg12" val="0"/>
            <Str sr="arg13" ve="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg14" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
            <Str sr="arg3" ve="3"/>
            <Str sr="arg4" ve="3"/>
            <Str sr="arg5" ve="3"/>
            <Str sr="arg6" ve="3"/>
            <Str sr="arg7" ve="3"/>
            <Str sr="arg8" ve="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg9" val="1"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act4" ve="7">
            547
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%counter</Str>
            <Str sr="arg1" ve="3">0</Str>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg3" val="1"/>
            <Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg5"/>
            <Int sr="arg6" val="0"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act5" ve="7">
            39
            <coll>false</coll>
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%currentfilepath</Str>
            <Str sr="arg1" ve="3">%filelist()</Str>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act6" ve="7">
            590
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%currentfilepath</Str>
            <Str sr="arg1" ve="3">/</Str>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act7" ve="7">
            547
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%pathlen</Str>
            <Str sr="arg1" ve="3">%currentfilepath(#)</Str>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg5" val="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg6" val="0"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act8" ve="7">
            547
            <Str sr="arg0" ve="3">%currentfilename</Str>
            <Str sr="arg1" ve="3">%currentfilepath(%pathlen)</Str>
            <Int sr="arg2" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg4" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg5" val="3"/>
            <Int sr="arg6" val="0"/>
        </Action>
        <Action sr="act9" ve="7">
            342
            <se>false</se>
            <Int sr="arg0" val="4"/>
            <Str sr="arg1" ve="3">%destdir%currentfilename</Str>
            <Str sr="arg2" ve="3">%fileexists</Str>
            <Int sr="arg3" val="0"/>
            <Int sr="arg4" val="1"/>
        </Action>

            <cls>com.facebook.katana.LoginActivity</cls>
            <pkg>com.facebook.katana</pkg>

    </Task>
</TaskerData>


text:
Core GMS package Suddenly started Malfunctioning (old Huawei Honor 8, ~2 years in use)
I have been using my Huawei Honor 8 for about 2 years now. I live in the US. And I have been using Google Play Store and other apps without any issues. Last night my phone ran out of charge and died. When I plugged it in and turned it on, I received tens of notifications stating: "Get Google Play Services. [App name] won't run without Google Play Services which are missing from your device". I Double checked it, and Google Play Services are still installed. However, whenever I attempt opening any Google-related app, I get an error message saying: "Core GMS packages. Install core GMS packages to use [App name]".
Has anyone encountered this problem before? What could cause it? And how could it be resolved?
Model Number: FRD-L04
Build Number: FRD-L04C567B398
EMUI version: 5.0.4
Android Version: 7.0

The internal data of one or more Google related apps may be corrupted when the phone ran out of battery. Try to clear the cache and user data of the core google apps/services.

Thank you, unfortunately this did not work. I tried clearing data and cash for all apps I had problems with and saw no success. I will keep trying

You can also try to deinstall and then re-install the updates of Google service apps, e.g. this one https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.gms

The issue was resolved. Since only certain Google-related apps were affected, I was able to back up everything else I had on the phone, including data and apps. After that I ran the Factory Data Reset and used my back up to make the process of setting up the phone and all the apps, I had been using, easier. The problem was resolved immediately after the reboot and I was able to set up the phone with my Google account.
/Posting this answer to end the thread/
P.S.: Prior to running a factory reset, I attempted clearing cache and data for the affected and related apps and resetting phone settings without deleting all data. That did not work.


text:
How to disable power button triple tap emergency call feature?
I'm using a OnePlus 6 (Magisk; systemless Xposed, stock ROM at Android 8.1.0). One of the features that constantly irritates me is the accidental dialing of emergency number. The system by-default looks for triple power button tap and automatically dials Emergency number (112). I read on XDA here that this is a feature specific to India and Indian SIMs, and I also bought this in India and use an Indian SIM. Other regional users, per some threads of OnePlus subreddit and OnePlus forums, do not have this problem and can customize the shortcut from Camera app or under Settings app, while I cannot.
I found this YouTube video but the recommended solution does not work because the Emergency Info app in my system doesn't have the activity used in the video. That app only has these two activities which only leads to editing Emergency specific user details:
.view.ViewInfoActivity
.edit.EditInfoActivity

How do I change this behavior? I'm looking to prevent emergency number dial on triple power button tap, and if possible, customization of that double power button tap to Camera launch. Furthermore, if possible, please provide a non-root based solution.

In Android Pie in OnePlus 6 you can now access the activity shown in the video via Settings → Security & lock screen → Emergency Rescue.

(Image sourced from OnePlus Forums)

I used logcat and found that the service GestureLauncherService (a sub-service of SystemService) actively looks for the triple power button tap and takes action accordingly. While I couldn't find such sub-service through GUI (Running services), dumpsys and cmd commands, I did notice this line in the logcat's output:
[ 11-15 21:21:27.368  1292: 1825 I/ActivityManager ]
START u0 {act=android.intent.action.CALL_PRIVILEGED dat=tel:xxx flg=0x10000000 cmp=com.android.server.telecom/.PrivilegedCallActivity} from uid 1000 pid 1292

I cross-checked it with adb shell dumpsys activity recents and found that PrivilegedCallActivity is the activity that shows up when the number is dialed.
So, while I can't prevent the gesture service, I  can prevent the number being dialed successfully. I immediately disabled the component PrivilegedCallActivity of the package com.android.server.telecom (Call Management app) using adb (requires root) like this:
adb shell su -c 'pm disable com.android.server.telecom/.PrivilegedCallActivity'

One can also use an app to disable that activity. From henceforth, that triple power button tap wouldn't make the call.
Note: disabling that activity does not prevent Emergency calls (both to user provided emergency contacts and country specific emergency numbers) from taking place from Emergency dialer at lock screen because that uses a different activity. It is just that the system cannot dial the emergency number without user's explicit consent on the dialer, anymore.

For those uncomfortable with disabling a component of a critical system app, as recommended here, they can use a solution which is safe and tested by others already.
At XDA, kashayapha1994  found this hack:
adb shell settings put global emergency_affordance_needed 0

That enables the quick capture shortcut setting in stock Camera app and in Settings app automatically. This also prevents dialing emergency number because system always fires the Camera app at double button press when the shortcut is enabled.
However, the hack doesn't survive a reboot, so anirudhnyg at XDA came up with a Magisk module (requires a rooted device) to automatically apply the aforesaid hack et al. Download it from the aforementioned link, install it and reboot. That's it.
You can also choose to apply that hack at boot using any app which can run a command/script at boot, such as Tasker, MacroDroid, Xposed Edge. Do note that all such apps would require root access or being set as Device Owner such as SecureTask (doesn't require root).

For Asus Zenfone max pro m2
Android 9
devices below works
pm disable com.android.server.telecom/.EmergencyCallActivity

as below does not work
adb shell settings put global emergency_affordance_needed 0


text:
Phone (usually) reboots when train enters a specific tunnel
The title is pretty much it.
There's a tunnel that, when I'm in a train entering or exiting it, frequently reboots my phone.
It's quite rare for me to see spontaneous reboots otherwise.
Why would such a thing happen?

+1. Interesting. Is your data / GPS on before this happens? When you enter /exit a tunnel state of two things will change - Mobile data and GPS. My wild, wild guess is that one of your installed apps is not able to handle that gracefully and instead trigger reboot . You could check this by seeing which apps use this features by checking their permissions (plenty of apps on Play Store that do that (aSpotCat for example). Disable those apps from settings and see if it happens again. If it doesn't, then likely one of those is the culprit. How to identify culprit app is, well, another question

@beeshyams: Interesting. GPS is off but data might be on every time this happens. Thanks for the tips, I'll let you know if I find something.


text:
Use wifi direct at 2.4GHz on Galaxy Tab S2
I would like to configure my Galaxy Tab S2 to use the 2.4GHz frequency for WiFi direct because my PC doesn't support the 5GHz band.
I'm using Total commander with the WiFi plugin to create a WebDAV server to be able to see the files on the tablet on the PC. This plugin can work by connecting to a wifi network but you can also use a wifi direct connection. My laptop is mostly in a room without a wifi connection, so  I would like to use the wifi direct option. However, it seems that this tablet only creates a 5Ghz wifi connection with WiFi direct.
Is it possible to configure it to use the 2.4Ghz band? How?

Possible? Yes it is but how technical do you want to get. It has been awhile since I have read up on wifi stuff. Is your question how to connect with wifi-direct at 2.4ghz? or you are having difficulty connecting at 2.4ghz? Because really all you have to do is connect to a 2.4ghz access point. Next go to the wifi-direct setting find the device you want to connect to and set up a pairing from that point on your should be good to go.

I explained in more detail what I'm trying to do.

Learning about wifi-direct (WD). Do you have a duel band router? Do you know which band the s2 was on when activating WD process? When connecting to an access point can you identify/isolate the network frequency of the SSID android wants to connect to? Or is your router configured to combine both frequencies under a single SSID. It appears connecting through a WiFi network. Android WD frequency is the same as its network connected wifi access point when creating a WD group. Once the group is created it should be a non-issue because the WD group conditions will be remembered.

It is strange that you are trying to use wi-fi direct to accomplish this task. AFAIK most Wi-Fi Direct compatible devices use the 2.4GHz connection  (by default) and given that most devices nowadays only communicate with other Wi-Fi Direct-certified devices not just random.
I suggest you simply use a standard wi-fi connection i.e something like a mobile hotspot using your device or PC as host. If it is a case that your mobile predominantly uses 5GHz connection, then you can use this to force a 2GHz connection.
Another option apart from WebDAV server is using an SMB, FTP server or even TCP server of your folder structure in sdcard or internal storage similar to this.


text:
How do I lock my bootloader with adb
I tried to unlock my bootloader with fastboot but that didn't work
>fastboot oem relock XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
FAILED (remote: 'root type is risk')
Finished. Total time: 0.014s

So I thought that adb would work (if it's possible)

Is your android device modified in anyway such a custom recovery, binary, or any other way? Reason why is usually this fatal exception happens it is for that reason. It is a safety thing if you lock your bootloader with a modified device you will brick your device. The bootloader is blocking you from locking because in checking your device it failed to pass as stock factory firmware. You need to have an un-modified device to re-lock the bootloader. So in otherwords your bootloader just saved you from bricking your device. If your device is modified then I will convert this comment to an answer

I'm not sure if I still have magisk flashed. I don't have twrp anymore it deleted it after I flashed a recovery it could also be the recovery...

@lobstermaster would you please let us know what device you are talking about and with what Android version? Also your question asks about locking the bootloader while the first statement mentions unlocking. If it's unlocked, what method you used to unlock? Please add details by editing question.

If your android device is modified in anyway such as a custom recovery, binary, or any other way. Trying to re-lock the bootloader should (should instead of would not all OEM follow protocol) usually cause the bootloader to issue a fatal exception like:FAILED (remote: 'root type is risk'). This happens due to device custom modifications. It is a safety thing if you lock your bootloader with a modified device you will most likey Brick your device.
Technical snippets about verification from Android Developers:

AOSP Secure Features Verifying Boot Verified boot requires cryptographically verifying all executable code and data that is part of the Android version being booted before it is used. This includes the kernel (loaded from the boot partition), the device tree (loaded from the dtbo partition), system partition, vendor partition, and so on.
Small partitions, such as boot and dtbo, that are read only once are typically verified by loading the entire contents into memory and then calculating its hash. This calculated hash value is then compared to the expected hash value. If the value doesn't match, Android won't load. For more details,
Larger partitions that won't fit into memory (such as, file systems) may use a hash tree where verification is a continuous process happening as data is loaded into memory. In this case, the root hash of the hash tree is calculated during run time and is checked against the expected root hash value. Android includes the dm-verity driver to verify larger partitions. If at some point the calculated root hash doesn't match the expected root hash value, the data is not used and Android enters an error state.
The expected hashes are typically stored at either the end or beginning of each verified partition, in a dedicated partition, or both. Crucially, these hashes are signed (either directly or indirectly) by the root of trust. As an example, the AVB implementation supports both approaches.
Verification can fail either at boot time (such as, if the calculated hash on boot partition doesn't match the expected hash) or at run time (such as, if dm-verity encounters a verification error on the system partition). If verification fails at boot time, the device cannot boot and the end user needs to go through steps to recover the device.
If verification fails at run-time the flow is a bit more complicated. If the device uses dm-verity, it should be configured in restart mode. In restart mode, if a verification error is encountered, the device is immediately restarted with a specific flag set to indicate the reason. The boot loader should notice this flag and switch dm-verity over to use I/O Error (eio) mode and stay in this mode until a new update has been installed.
When booting in eio mode, the device shows an error screen informing the user that corruption has been detected and the device may not function correctly. The screen shows until the user dismisses it. In eio mode the dm-verity driver will not restart the device if a verification error is encountered, instead an EIO error is returned and the application needs to deal with the error.
The intent is that either the system updater will run (so a new OS without corruption errors can be installed) or the user can get as much of their data off the device as possible. Once the new OS has been installed, the boot loader notices the newly installed OS and switches back to restart mode."

Without knowing which device you have or what Android version your running. I will not be able to give a detailed conclusion tailored to your device but instead a simple generic one. Also be wary of anti-roll back if applicable.
That being the case obtain and download signed factory firmware. Use fastboot, download mode, or whatever your mode your device uses to erase and flash partitions. Depending on protocol erase and then flash the factory signed firmware thus returning completely to stock. Reboot the bootloader and re-issue the fastboot oem relock XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX and you should be good to go.

To prevent unauthorized access to your personal data, locking the bootloader will also delete all personal data on your phone.

Keep's it simple no need to jump through a checklist of hoops to avoid flashing firmware to preserve User Data unless you cannot find signed factory firmware but that would be another question.


text:
Bring back to life my dead Tablet (Is it Bricked?)
Edited 12/3/2018
My tablet died from one minute to the next. I can't get it to turn on and it doesn't connect to the computer. I can't even get it to handshake with the computer when running SP Flash Tool.
Device Info:

Pipo N7
Android 7.0
MTK8163A Chipset
Rooted with Magisk
TWRP Custom Recovery

This is how it happened:
The tablet was connected to PC and I was trying to push a file with adb to my External SD Card. I got an error message that permission denied. I tried doing adb root and push again out I still got the same message. I tried a third time and got the same message. After this 3rd message I found the tablet was off and nothing I did was able to get it to turn back on.
I'm running the rooted device for about 2 weeks without any problems. The only change in the last few days was the TWRP Custom recovery which I added about 2 days before the device died on me.
The device was about 95% charged when this happened.
This what I have tried:

I tried a variety of hardware buttons for extended time like up to a minute.  for example Power + volume UP, Power + Volume DOWN. with and without it being connected to the charger.
I tried a few different chargers.
I tried putting the tablet into the freezer and then to charge.
I tried warming up the device and then charge it.
I tried with a battery pack.

I have read many posts about this but nothing I tried helped me.
To me it looks as if the device is dead not that there is a problem with the charge, But I may be wrong.
** EDIT **
A little over a week after this happened I happened to connect the device to a charger and lo and behold the device showed the charge logo. After that I powered it on and it turned on. I was very surprised but glad.
But then after a little while o using the device, I got on the screen colored lines moving around. Nothing I tried was able to get this to go away, So I held the power button to turn it off. After this I'm in the same problem as before the device is dead.
Now this proves that the device isn't bricked. My question now is what is it that is causing this and how do I fix it. At this point it is dead again but I may have some luck again in it turning on again.
** End EDIT **
Please any help with this would be greatly appreciated. i would like to also try to figure out why this happened as well as trying to repair the tablet.

May not help but did you try a different cable?

@beeshyams Yes I have.

"Colored lines moving around" is indicative of a hardware failure... The "generic" Mediatek devices are general considered disposable. If you have tried different cables and chargers, verify the USB port doesn't have lint or dirt built up in it (would be unusual in a tablet, very common in a phone carried in a pocket), and if that doesn't work the device is probably ready to be retired/recycled.

Thanks for your help. Its a brand new device, less then a month old. There is no lint buildup.

Drain the battery fully and then recharge it. This has worked for me in the past.


text:
How to protect a system app's data from factory reset?
Is it possible to protect a system app's data from factory reset?
For example: my phone is rooted. I choose to move the Tasker app as a system app. I want all the Profiles, Tasks, Scenes and settings to remain on my phone even after factory data reset. Is that possible? Is it possible to preserve the data of the app?

You can back up system settings using Titanium backup and restore them

Though I haven't tried converting user app to system app and backing/ restoring

yeah, but the data doesnt remain, when doing factory reset. I mean, let say for example email app, is there anyway that even factory reset the registered email will remain? perhaps moving the data to somewhere untouchable during reset?

Not sure of that...never tried:)

Whole app is restored if you backup the app data from /data/data/ or /data/user/ID/ and /sdcard/Android/data/ after reinstalling app or after factory reset. But you need to set the new app UID as well on all files and directories related to that app.


text:
Backup Messages for Web?
My phone's screen died, and neither did I root it nor enable USB debugging, so I can't back up my SMS messages the traditional way.
However, I have messages for web (messages.android.com) set up, and can see all my messages there. Is there a way to back this up? If not, is there some API I can use to scrape all my messages?

If you can manage to enable USB Debugging using mouse with OTG then you can backup using ADB tool.


text:
Any Camera-enabled app will block my Pixel 3 XL camera until reboot
I own a Pixel 3 XL phone (Pie). I am experiencing the following:

When I open any camera-enabled app (including Whatsapp and Barcode scanner), the camera subsystem will stop working, the camera-enabled app will crash or just won't show images on screen. After that, the stock Camera app by Google will crash after 10 seconds of attempting to render an image on screen, and the behaviour will persist until reboot

My phone is rooted with Magisk Core, but the framework is stock and is the latest version
I have tried a lot of times to fix issues with caches and user data, but the behaviour is consistent.

Reset Stock camera to factory version
Deleted settings and caches from other apps (I didn't reset Whatsapp data, but I tried with Barcode scanner)
Revoked and reviewed Camera permissions to the very minimum
Restart in safe mode and in normal mode
Haven't yet factory resetted the phone
I will probably try to uninstall Magisk and flash the stock boot image

I am very concerned not just because the issue is annoying, but that the camera subsystem is rendered completely unusable until reboot. In Android, apps cannot interfere each other.
I collected a bug report from my phone and sent to my personal email, I am likely to inspect it.
In the meantime, has someone else experienced this problem and found a way to use other camera apps that are not the Stock one?

Please note: google-pixel-3-xl and crosshatch tags are synonims. I don't know which one is the best to use


text:
Google Calendar Privacy Issues
Does Google have access to the data stored in my Google Calendar?
As Google Calendar seems to be the best option for Android users and is widely used, I was wondering if Google actually uses your personal data of events and tasks for their personalized ads. Looking at how Google threads privacy with their Gmail service (e.g. a Report from the WSJ), it would be interesting to know if the same pracitces are applied with their Calendar application.

Have you seen the Google's Privacy Policy page, specifically the What Google Collects and Why Google Collects sections.

As long as the data is stored in server of someone else they do have access to data you have stored, but it's different thing do they allow their employees access to data. I'd say no. They won't never give their employees access to your data, but if you read their terms of service you will find it out how they use your data. If they "access to your data" I believe they do not access to data themselves. It's like a bot which finds your interests and fetches more interesting ads front of your face, but basically none of the real persons do not know your interests. Data is anonymous. They use something else than your name or email to identify you to show you ads of your interests.

I would like to see some actual sources not just assumptions. And regarding your statement that only algortihms are going to read your data, that wasn't the case with Gmail. Humans also had access and used it to read private mails.

https://safety.google/privacy/data/


text:
How to enter a URL into a smartphone without doing a search?
Scenario: I'm talking in-person with someone and during the course of conversation I think of a website whose URL I know from memory, and I want them to type the URL into their smartphone and access the website directly without performing a web search (just like you could do on a traditional computer web browser in the address bar).
To be clear: I don't want it to do "search as you type", I don't want it to create suggestions based on partial matches, and I don't want it to do any kind of search that delivers search results. I don't want the entered string to be sent to a search engine to do any processing of any kind. I just want it to open a connection to the indicated website (i.e., go directly to DNS lookup followed by HTTP or HTTPS connection to the entered URL). Also, in this scenario, I have no way to generate a QR code for them (I don't own a smartphone, and might not be carrying my computer with me).
Do smartphones have that facility (i.e., a field to enter a URL without passing it to a search engine, exactly like the old browsers used to do with the address bar)? If so, how do I instruct the Android user (and/or iOS user) to find the field where they can type in the URL and not have it be processed by a search engine?

I don't see a problem here, just check the different browser apps for an option to disable the automatic search. This has nothing to do with Android, just with the browser app you are using - I assume you are using Chrome by default.

You can even configure Chrome the way you want: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/privacy-settings-chrome-android/

That doesn't work. The people in the scenario I described are non-technical. They don't even know if they're using Chrome or not. Also, they usually don't want to hand me their phone to make config changes (like I'm sitting next to them in a bar, or meetup group). I just wanted to know what button to tell them to push to make it do the thing I described (just like on a computer browser). If there is one, great. If there isn't, there isn't.

Then I only have one suggestion left: Don't enter the URL, use a QR code instead the the URL is sent as one to the web browser and the address bar search and suggestion feature is not used. Anyway if you want to keep URLs secret you are doing something wrong - use a password protected site instead.

Thanks for the note. I might not be able to generate a QR code on short notice (as I don't normally carry such devices myself) and might not know in advance what QR codes I might want. Also, the point wasn't to keep the URL secret, it was to see if smartphones have the equivalent function as the computer web browser.  If it doesn't, it doesn't. I'm OK with that, if that's the answer.

I am sorry but your question does not make sense to me if you don't care about the privacy of the URL. If you want to enter an URL just enter in in the web browser and just ignore that it performs autocomplete in the background. If you keep on entering the url the entered url will be used. May be you should edit your question and create a real example how and why you want to disable autocomplete (the "how" I already explained to you).

It wasn't just about autocomplete, it was about what I specified in the original question (just asking if a certain functionality exists). I have my answer already so I won't add to the question (in order to avoid adding additional confusion).

Summary (after one month): "No can do." The functionality of entering a URL without doing a search (as it exists on computer browsers) does not exist on smartphones conveniently (i.e., without doing some kind of obscure config changes or app installation, which would not be suitable to do in the scenario described in the original question).

These days, browsers on mobile devices, use one bar for searching with an search engine and inserting a specific URL request of web site.
What you need to do is simple tell them "Touch top bar/address bar and insert this specific URL" or "Insert this URL in the bar and send".
You need to know that if the inserted text is a correctly formatted URL (protocol://domainOrIPAddress:port/path/filename) then the browser will show you directly the web page, otherwise it will use the default search engine for retrieving a possible list of sites that you maybe want to see for the inserted keyword.
In summary, you don't need something special, everything should work without you doing anything on browser settings. However I think there is an option to deactivate the bar for searching cases and only use it for inserting URL, but it's more convenient how it works normally, so by default is one bar for searching and URL request in all browsers.
However, for not letting search engines look on your search/request you need to uncheck some settings on browsers like "Suggestions by Search Engine/Bookmarks".

It didn't work.  I followed your instructions on a friend's smartphone and it did a "search as you type" displaying a list of search results, indicating that the URL was passed to a search engine (which is exactly what I said I don't want).

Sorry I mistook your question on this part. Like on desktop browsers there are some setting that you can play with. The name is browser dependent but in general there is a checkbox "activate suggestion by provider" or "activate suggestion by history". You need to uncheck this options. So you need to say  "Go on settings -> Uncheck/Remove setting" and after that go to search bar and write this URL. Hope this helps and I'll update the answer after your veriffication

I'm not sure what you mean about browser dependent.  The people I'm referring to either aren't using a browser or aren't aware of one being there.  They are non-technical.  Also, disabling their ability to do a normal search seems a bit severe.  I wasn't looking for a solution that disables any normal capability, nor one that requires complex reconfiguration (or installing an app, or coding, installing another OS, etc...  even though I know all of those solutions might exist).  This might be some person in a bar and I just want them to go to some URL without it being recorded by google etc.

Sorry man, but Internet is a public so in reality even the providers could theoretically speaking register your requests for looking in them. You need to give them faith that they aren't looking. When you send a packet on the network, especially with technology wireless like WI-FI every one can sniff your packets and if they aren't encrypted easily look what you have requested. In the end if they are interested they will look. However you can use some other services to have more privacy like VPN and so one, but its maybe over kill for your case.

In the end if you don't want to be recorded the best way is to create a personal program that makes the request in an encrypted communication like TLS, or use some service like VPN, DuckDuckGo and Tor having faith in what they promise. However there will be obviously a trace that you are using this service, but Google for example will not know what you were doing in this sessions. So sorry, but there isn't a easy solution to not be tracked with the basic app that we are normally using (default browsers and so on)

Thanks for your efforts to respond, but the key issue is not whether it is recorded (that was just an example of an effect of passing to a search engine, hence the "etc."), it was simply to not pass the results to a search engine (as stated in the original post).  I'm aware of the underlying workings of the Internet, I was just trying to find out whether or not smartphones have (without substantial config changes, apps, or programming) a space for entering a URL without performing a search (just like browsers do, or did).  That is what I wanted to know.  Other considerations are not important.

No there isn't a default component which do that, maybe on a very specific but not the most used ones. You need to change some settings for not using the address bar with search engines and only for inserting URL otherwise.

None of the above worked for Chrome, but I stumbled on the solution. You type the address in the bar, then hold it. Initially just one word is selected with the cursor (like when you delete characters), but if you keep holding it down the whole address will be selected and a few icons will come up at the top. One of the icons is "open" so you just tap that and the requested page will open instead of doing a search.

Note: my answer is speculative, so take with a grain of salt and YMMV, etc.
You can access the Chrome internal page located at...
chrome://omnibox
...and play around with the options to potentially achieve what you're looking for.  The notable options include the zero suggest and prevent inline autocomplete toggles.  However, please note I have not tested these functions myself and hence cannot say for certain they will produce the desired results; if you have the time and desire to do so, here is the official resource regarding that internal page.
Another thought I had was that you can use any text-field outside of the browser to type your URL, and then switch over to the browser and directly paste the url into the omnibox.
Finally, there should be several ways to access a terminal emulator, which then gives you the option to directly open whatever literal URL you input as a command.  I can't speak for certain, but I would make the assumption that this would circumvent autocomplete; in fact, you might test this with, say, a shortcut widget/application or other indirect means available to call on a URI you specify (e.g., generating the URL into a hyperlink in a word processor and clicking it; also works in Excel/Sheets with the hyperlink() function, etc).
Whether or not these are acceptable depends on your intent behind your question, as it's a bit ambiguous even after reading the OP over several times: do you not want any autocomplete entry logs?  On server-side or device-side?  Do you simply not want to visually see autocomplete predictions populating in-line as you type?  Is your concern privacy-centric (in regards to ISP, or the device owner, etc), or some other criteria?  I know you've tried to narrow your question down to be more context-specific, but understanding these facets would help the community be better able to answer your question and perhaps even qualify workarounds that might otherwise have been neglected.


text:
How to recover data from a device with broken touch screen and no OTG support?
A friend of mine owns a ZTE T84, also known as the Telstra Tough Max. Unfortunately, he dropped the phone and cracked the screen which resulted in a non-responding touchscreen. The screen itself does work.
In the meantime, he has bought a new phone, but still wants to restore all his contacts from the old phone. So I promised him to take a look at it.
At first I checked his Gmail account with him to verify if all his contacts were backed up in that account. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.
I am able to connect the phone to a PC and it is connected in PTP mode, which gives the possibility to copy all the photos but not the rest of the data stored in the phone.
Then I tried to use an OTG cable with a mouse connected to the device. Unfortunately, this didn't work either, because the phone doesn't function as a USB host.
After that, I ended up trying things via the recovery mode menu. I tried to access the device via ADB, but it doesn't show up in there. It looks like USB debugging is not enabled. I noticed, when choosing "Apply update from ADB", it does connect and shows up in adb devices as sideload. But I can't use adb shell from there on, only the sideload things.
When I choose the option "Reboot to bootloader" it gives me a black screen, but I noticed it popped up in device manager and fastboot list it in the devices. However, commands such as fastboot oem device-info don't work.
I also tried to wipe the cache partition in the hope that the usb-connection mode would change, but no luck with that.
I did a lot of Googling on this subject but, so far, no luck in finding the solution. Does anyone have an another idea of what I can try to gain control over the phone or at least restore his contacts?


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Get past Google lock
I have a Samsung Galaxy J3 prime.it was factory reset and now won't let me log in to the internet. I don't have the Google account email address

It's part of the new Account Protection on android devices above 4.4 ( i think )
It's designed to stop someone stealing your device and then just doing a factory reset to basically have a new device.
After a factory reset, you'll need to confirm ownership of the device by logging into Google with a previously linked account.
Only idiot's still think that device theft is an option when trying to get a new device.
Some second-hand stores, fail to properly reset device's because they don't ask you to remove all of your linked accounts first !!! ...
To stop Account Protection on Factory Reset, you'll need to REMOVE ALL accounts on the device !!
You'll know it's ready for a proper reset when you try to remove the last google account, it'll say that device security features will be disabled if you remove the only linked account... Once you accept the removal of the last linked account, it'll be ok for a factory reset !!


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Type German special characters with Bluetooth Keyboard
I'm trying to type German special characters ä, ü, ß with Bluetooth keyboard (Logitech k810) using SwiftKey (this is the keyboard app I normally use when not using the keyboard, ideally wouldn't have to swap keyboards everytime). When typing directly onto the phone, I would long press the 'a' key to bring up the ä character, but doing the same thing on the physical keyboard just repeats the same character.
On my Windows laptop, I use Autohotkey to overide the input such that pressing CAPS + a = ä. Would be ideal to be able to do the same thing on android

You should be able to set the keyboard layout of your keyboard in the settings (e.g. Languages & Input).