text:
Voice announcement of phone calls?
When my phone gets a call it announces either the number or contact of caller. Where can I turn this off or on?
I am using Galaxy S3 / Android 4.0.4.

I don't have the awesome phone like yours but I guess its in Settings - Accessibility.

I checked that, nothing there.

This happens when you have Driving Mode enabled on the S3. Pull down the notifications bar, scroll to the right, and disable Driving mode.
That being said, on my S3, when I reboot with driving mode on, it comes back with it still enabled though the menu says it's not. Just enable it and disable it to make it go away then.


text:
How do I enter twrp recovery?
I unlocked (not rooted) my HTC One XL using official HTC method. Then I install goomanger and installed latest open recovery script TWRP 2.3.0.0 evita. goomanager said that it was installed. Then I tried to boot into recovery from goomanger (there was a note that root access will be acquired and if this doesn't happen I have to go to recovery manually). Nothing happened I was still in goomanager.
From  TWRP website -->You must be S-OFF or have taken HTC's unlock to use a recovery on your device!
So I booted into fastboot and then selected recovery and pressed power button. See the screenshot for what happened. I got the 'briliant' screen then black screen with mobile and green something above it and then black screen with mobile and red triangle. The red one stays there for 2-3 minutes and then mobile restarts into normal mode.

I want to run twrp to install cm10

(not rooted) yet, there was a note that root access will be acquired and if this doesn't happen I have to go to recovery manually - Have you actually tried rooting first before doing that?

From TWRP website: You must be S-OFF or have taken HTC's unlock to use a recovery on your device! - I did the second one.

Installing a recovery and flashing your rom

Download your recovery.img or wahtever the name is to your fastboot folder.
adb reboot bootloader
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
fastboot reboot recovery
Now use your recovery to flash your rom.

At this point you may not be able boot into your rom if you do not have S-OFF.But give it a try. If it works then forget the next few lines.

Copy the boot.img file from inside your rom and copy it to your fasboot folder.
adb reboot bootloader
fastboot flash boot boot.img.

Now you can reboot to boot into your rom.

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

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How to sync contact photos from phone back to google contacts?
I have updated my contact photos in my phone and then I wanted to update my google contacts.
The sync of contact data is working fine, but the photos aren't being synced.
Is there anyway I can fix this?
I have Samsung Galaxy S3 with ICS 4.0.4

Does your pictures sync the other way? (I.e. upload a picture on the web interface, does it sync to the phone?) If not, make sure contact sync is actually enabled in the settings, or if there are any sub-settings to the contact sync where pictures perhaps is disabled.

Sorry, I don't have enough rep to comment, so I just ask you here:
Can you please try to:

Create a contact on your phone
Log in to http://contacts.google.com/ with your computer
see if it get's on the contacts website after you've created the contact on your phone
Change something in the contact on your phone (phone number)
See if it updates in the contacts website

If it doesn't update you have a contact sync issue.
Go to:
Settings > Accounts & Sync > (your google account) > Sync contacts

This must be enabled.
Check the last sync time, is it recent?
If this all doesn't help. As a workaround try to add a contact picture from the contacts website and check if it gets updatet into your phone. I manage all my contacts there as it is easier.

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


text:
How to sync folders via cloud in a Dropbox-like way

Possible Duplicate:
Complete Dropbox implementation for Android

How can I sync as much as possible of the folder-structure of my phone to the cloud, and from there to the desktop in a DropBox-like way?
Typical applications could be to move photos off the phone (Move it out on my desktop and have it reflected on the phone), and to put podcasts on the phone.
If I could put Dropbox to sync the root of the SD card or perhaps the whole file-system it would it principle do it ( Most of these kind of apps use a dedicated folder, which is not logically on the SD card).
I have seen one pay add-on to DropBox that seems to do this.
(I prefer free of course)
One issue is that i already use DropBox for other purposes, so it would be better to use the free quota of another provider.

This answer might be what you're looking for: http://android.stackexchange.com/a/23258/13391 You'd need the paid version though.

Dropsync up in the same thread looks more promising (Than FolderSync that you refer to).

I have only used Foldersync from the recommended apps. But you also asked for something that syncs with something other than DB and foldersync can do that. Dropsync can't.


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How to drag apps to the task tray?
I am trying to drag icons to my task tray using my galaxy s3 v4.0.4.
However when I am dragging the icons down to the tray the task icons dissappear and a bunch of options appear like info and delete. How can I pin apps. I have looked everywhere and not found a solution for this problem. Please help.!!

You want to add apps to bottom task tray, where message, phone etc shortcuts are present?

Click on the applications icon, then select menu > edit. You can now drag-and-drop any application icon you want (except for the applications icon)

yea, but with the recent update, no option to do this, i thought that it was strange, so i got fed up and called samsung and they said with 4.0.4 that you actually can not place icons in the tray, fail samsung. all other previous versions allowed this, i would have assumed that this would be a standard thing, apparently not.

You can install a different launcher that does support changing the tray icons.


text:
Android full support offline map

Possible Duplicate:
Is there an offline maps application for Android?

I've been using google offline maps, however there is an issue that we cannot search. Is there any application for Android that gives you full support for offline map, support like searching, GPS or more. I currently have a google nexus 7.

You might want to take a look at Locus Pro. Not sure about the free version, but at least the full version's app decription includes Search (by adress, coordinates, contact). It has full offline maps support (downloable directly from within the app), supports location via network as well as GPS, and comes with a lot of useful addons.
There might be other offline map apps available in the Playstore, so you might want to search there. Also, the Mapsaurus app (or its website) might help you find a similar app.

about locus pro, does it allows offline postcode searching?

I never tried. Just bought it today after having used the free version for a while. I very much like the possibility to load complete .kmz files for offline use -- so I can prepare my own travel guide, including images. And while on vacation, can add other places, record tracks, and more -- to finally be prepared for a nice travel report :) Navigation etc. are also not a bad thing to have.

yaa, great, so then I'll be also buying it, i already have some £15 which i obtained when i bought the nexus :)

Make sure to check out their forum then. Lots of material there to download (like POI archives I described above). Also good manuals, and more. Wiki holds a full documentation, too. Have fun with it! I hope I will have fun with it on my vacation now, too :)


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Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 infinite login redirect with 2 step authentication
I've just bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 and tried to login with my google (gmail) account (which has 2 step authentication) and it redirected me to the web login which I completed (with the text message for the code because it's an unrecognized device). It then returns me to the OS login which I try again which then redirects me back to the web login.
So I get stuck in this infinite loop when trying to login. I assume that this is because I've got 2 step authentication enabled. Any idea how to login in the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 with 2 step authentication?

You should try to set up an "application specific" password for your tab, and enter THAT password when you enter your account details.
Now you totally avoid the second screen asking for the code.
You can create an application specific password at
https://accounts.google.com/b/0/IssuedAuthSubTokens (at least that's the one I use)
Kind regards
joern

He already has it.

You can temporarily turn off 2-step verification, and turn it back on after you have logged in.
I had the same issue with Galaxy Tab 2, and did just that.


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why does my GPS not work in Italy without WiFi?
Currently travelling at the moment with my Asus Transformer tf300tg.
I don't have a sim card in it, but whenever I have WIFI access, I'll download the Google Offline maps and this is convenient cause when I need it, I can just load up the maps and use GPS to pinpoint exactly where I am.
This is at least what I've been doing in Slovenia and Croatia which has worked fine.
However, I've recently entered Italy and for some reason, although my Offline Maps are still there, I cannot use GPS to pinpoint my location anymore. It just keeps saying my location cannot be resolved.
Why is this? How exactly was my tablet resolving my GPS in the first place? It had no sim card and I was in some fairly remote places so it's safe to say that I wasn't using any mobile towers to detect my location. If that's true, then it's using pure GPS from the satellites, then if that's true, why has it suddenly stopped working once we've entered Italy?

The GPS should eventually work without wifi, the further you are in distance and time from the last GPS sync, the longer the startup time will be.   Perhaps in Slovenia and Croatia you used it enough that the startup time was reasonable.  (Wifi access can shortcut the process by giving the GPS a hint as to your probably location).
I would suggest putting the tablet somewhere stationary with a clear view of the sky and giving it a good while to sync, it will probably eventually sync up.

...Wifi access can shortcut the process by giving the GPS a hint as to your probably location) + and download almanac details, with time sync details from NTP servers, there by speeding up the fix.


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Formatting (or reinstalling) Samsung Galaxy S2
I have some experience about Android phones (but i'm not an expert) .
I have problems with my Samsung Galaxy S2 (GT-I9100) . Its battery heating too much, there are a lots of applications, sometimes phone freezing and not responsing, it's battery consumption is too much and it's a little slow. And sometimes restarting itself.
In shortly, i'm using it for long time, i installed too many apps and uninstall some of them. Now i want to clear everything (except SD card datas) , delete all datas / apps . And start from origin, again. I'll my (really needed) applications from Google Play, later.
In computer knowledge, it's mean format , i think.
But for mobile phones, I'm not sure, it's called as "formatting" or "firmware reinstalling" .
I plugged my phone to computer and launch Samsung Kies but there isn't reinstall firmware option.
Notes

Android version : 4.0.3
My phone isn't rooted. (and i won't do that)
I'm worring about warranty. So, please just legal methods.
I don't want to lose my datas (music, etc) on my SD CARD.
I don't want to send my phone to technical service for this. It'll take at least 4-5 days.

What you are most likely look for is called "factory reset". As the name suggests, a "factory reset" is supposed to reset the device to its original state, as it was delivered by the factory. What in fact is done by a factory reset is to wipe all user-installed apps and all user data (for the latter, except data stored on sdcard).
This can be done either from within the system menu (look for the entry with the "fence" symbol, it's labeled something with "Privacy") -- or using the hardware buttons, as described at Hard-Reset.Com:

switch off your phone
press and hold volume-up and home buttons
press the power button for 2-3 seconds
release only power button, but KEEP pressing Volume up + Home Buttons
with Volume down select wipe data/factory reset (3rd) > Press Power

There's no need to re-install any firmware. The system resides on its own (read-only) partition, which is not touched by this process. Having followed above steps, your phone should then boot in a clean state. Don't worry if the first boot after that takes a bit longer -- that is fully normal. Also this does not void your warranty, as these steps would also be recommended by the service hotline if your device went nuts, and they want to eliminate the cause of misconfiguration or misbehaving (user-installed) apps.
For a reference, you might also want to take a look at the question Do a total wipe of my device.

This won't touch to my external SD CARD , right ? Should i remove it before formatting?

It should not touch your SD card, that's right. It might do so for Apps2SD data (i.e. apps you installed on/moved to your SD card using the Apps2SD feature). To be sure, you could of course remove your SD card before doing the factory reset. In case you had some apps moved to the card, you might need to remove them manually (mount the card to your PC, and remove the .android_secure folder) to avoid problems when you try to re-install them.


text:
multiple zoom levels without multiple tile layers (RMaps Ext + MOBAC)?
I am using RMaps Ext (a rmaps mod) on Android, browsing offline maps created using Mobile Atlas Creator (MOBAC). It's working great so far.
The only problem is that when browsing offline satellite maps the zoom level is fixed to the tile layers I chose to download on MOBAC.
But I was wondering since I have already downloaded more detail satellite maps, e.g. zoom level 16, in theory I could browse zoom level 15, 14 to level 10. You just need some fast algorithm to zoom out a big image.
e.g.

The level 16 zoom file size is 80MB
The level 10-16 zoom file size is 120MB

So could the zoom out scaling be done on Android using the 80MB file directly?
It will save a lot of storage space (but spend more on CPU with image resizing)
Thanks in advance!

The expected behaviour has to be provided by the application rather than not from Android services.
I have not used RMaps, but I use TrekBuddy which also uses offline map tiles created by MOBAC.  The working nature of the MOBAC and hence these apps which depends on MOBAC does provide offline map tile in layers. Either Zoom level can be stored in a layer or different map types like satellite image, terrain, normal map etc can be in stored in each layer.
When I create offline maps I create them in various zoom levels say (from 15 to 10) each in seperate layer as shown:

The apps like RMaps and Trekbuddy shows only one layer at a time. To simulate zooming, one has to load the layer with higher zoom level. Say for example, if I am presently viewing a map in zoom level 10, in order to zoom, I should load layer for zoom level 11 or higher.  To ease this operation, Trekbuddy has a feature called easy zoom, with which (once configured properly), once can zoom with volume rocker keys. Pressing volume up will zoom up and pressing volume down will zoom down.  However as expected this feature intervened with actual volume up and down feature and hence it was reported to work in few phones only (not working in mine - a LG Optimus One running Andorid 2.3.3/CM10).

yes thanks but my main objective is to without the 10-14 levels, create 10-14 levels on-the-fly on android with the level 15 tiles. Is it possible?

That seems to be simply too much and not possible in my opinion. MOBAC creates only raster maps and not vector maps, which alone can be zoomed as you want. If that's the case you may have to opt for OSMAnd or NavFree which relies on Open Source Map with vector support.

Thanks again, but I am dl satellite maps for offline use, which IMHO is just a huge sized image.

Yes, there's no reason you couldn't do this on Android. But you'd have to modify the app to generate the scaled tiles on-the-fly: it would certainly be fast enough on a recent phone with a good GPU. I don't believe there's already an app that does this: satellite maps are so large that wanting to use them offline is an unusual use case.


text:
Samsung Galaxy R - No files in default music player
I own a Samsung Galaxy R. Recently, I could not find any files in default music player after I installed PowerAMP. How do I bring back the files in the default music player? I've checked by uninstalling PowerAMP... that didn't help!

Just to make sure, there were files visible in the default music player before you installed PowerAMP?

Yes it was visible "THelper"

I sometimes have problems with the media indexer ("Media Storage" Service), then I just do the following to let it rescan and rebuild all media files on the phone:

Settings > Apps > All Apps > "Default music player" > Force stop, Clear data, Clear cache
Settings > Apps > ALl Apps > "Media Storage" > Force stop, Clear data, Clear cache
Reboot phone
Unlock your phone and wait 10-20 minutes, don't do anything, don't open your Music App, don't care if it locks again just let it be for at least 10-20 min.

Not working dude...


text:
Where are saved pages stored?
I have used the stock browser to save a page for offline reading.
It is a .txt file, the browser only opens it and does not give me an option to download it.
Where is the page stored, i would like to open it with another app.
I have looked under /sdcard/Android/data But there is no com.android.browser folder or any other folder which looks like the right one.

Not sure, but usually downloads are stored in /sdcard/download or /sdcard/downloads. Have you checked there?

@Izzy Yes i have. I could not download the file, the browser only opens the link. So i had to use the Save-for-offline-reading option

I see -- that's of course something different. Please take a look at my answer below -- I guess I covered all possibilities now :)

Where to find it when it was downloaded
If you have been able to "download" the file, the most likely location to find it is either /sdcard/download or /sdcard/downloads.
It wasn't downloaded, but "saved for offline reading"
But as it turns out, the stock browser didn't give you that option, and you had to "save for offline reading" -- which is something different. In this case the file probably is stored on internal storage (below /data/data/com.android.browser). Without root you've got not many chances to access it there. So you could either try with a different browser -- or simply copy-paste the text file into some note-taking app / editor (e.g. Jota Text Editor or AmbleLink Notepad Basic Ed.).
Alternative download options
If you have to do this more often, or formatting gets lost on copy-paste, you're probably much better of with some "downloader tools". I just know about Tasker, which offers HTTP_GET actions. Depending on your ROM, the shell might provide wget (stock ROM on my Milestone 2 had this), so all you need in that case is a terminal app (e.g. Android Terminal Emulator), and there simply execute
# change to the directory where you want to store the downloaded file in
cd /sdcard/download
# get the file
wget http://www.example.com/textfile.txt

Adjust that to your needs, of course :)
Special downloader apps
Other alternatives would include special "Downloader Apps", like e.g. Download All Files or Easy Downloader, which you might want to give a try.

While in your web browser, press and hold the Return button on the lower right side of your phone. then at the top of the page select saved pages

Tap ［internet］ icon, tap ［☆］on top right corner, tap ［saved pages］ on top right corner. Done.

Tap the flag with the star at the top right of the browser and click on the saved pages tab.


text:
What is a "Top Developer" in Google Play?
When I see "Top Developer" in Google Play, what does that mean exactly?

That is decided by Google, more precisely by the Google Play Team.

Google today announced Editor's Choice for Android Market, aimed to help you find the best applications on the Android Market. Google's also going to begin awarding the "Top Developer Badge" to help show users who are the best, and most trustworthy apps. For consumers, it's a way to help find new apps. For developers, it's another way of promotion and to monetize.


text:
Why can't I see the +1 button on some apps in the Play Store app?
In the Play Store app, I find the +1 button on some app pages, but not all app pages.  For example, Smart Tools and Asphalt 7: Heat are missing the button.  Why is this?
Interesting: This behavior is dynamic. Means, few minutes ago, I was unable to find +1 button on Smart Tools app page. Now, its there. And, few minutes ago, +1 button was on Camera Zoom FX app page. Now, its gone.
Some key information which might be useful:

I am NOT talking about web interface. I am talking about app pages in Play Store.
My device is Samsung Galaxy S with GB 2.3.5. Interestingly, my Nexus 7 (with JB 4.1) doesn't have this problem.
My Play Store version is 3.9.16.
My carrier is Reliance GSM in India.

I have taken screenshot of two of top paid apps' pages which doesn't have +1 button:

You can see in the screenshot that SwiftKey 3 & Tasks don't have +1 button.
The Dynamic Behavior:

You can see in the screenshot that Camera Zoom FX app page does have +1 button. Few minute later its gone:

Update:
Few minutes ago, SwiftKey 3 app page didn't have +1 button, but now its there:


text:
Can I use my Nexus7 charger to charge my Android phone?
The Nexus charger has an OP Amp rating of 2A. The charger that comes with the phone has an OP Amp rating of 1A. Both have the same voltage. IP voltage is 100-250 V for both.
I googled and came across various posts saying how Li-ion batteries are smarter and how the phone will only draw as much power as it needs, and not more.
So essentially, the phone takes what it needs, and the charger is capable, but doesnt force its rated voltage on the device. Is this correct way of putting it?
Will it damage the battery in anyway? Or the charging circuit?

I've used my Nexus 7 charger on my Nexus S phone for the past 2 months or so and haven't noticed any ill effects yet.

I've plugged in any number of mini-USB power packs to my Galaxy Nexus (and before that, my DROID) and each worked just fine.

In short: yes, you can use your Nexus7 charger to charge your Android phone. If the connectors are compatible, it will work without problems.
I always use a single 2A USB charger for every phone, tablet and ereader that I have at home, and also for the Raspberry PI.

It is convenient to carry a single charger. But a problem, when all devices are powerless at the same time.

It might work less well the other way around. The N7 has an almost completely stripped sleeve, making for a very long plug. Conversely my Galaxy Nexus has a quite short USB sleeve - I can't get it far enough into the N7 for it to charge. (The micro-usb standard clearly isn't quite prescriptive enough!)

@theTuxRacer ...a really bad omen... ;-)

Charging my Samsung Galaxy Note 1 (GT-N7000) since 2 Months with my Nexus 7 charger without problems.
The Nexus 7 charger provides enough output and the phone manages this.
But vice versa: Most phone chargers have less output (1A) so it needs longer to charge your Nexus 7 tablet.


text:
How do I expand my Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray internal storage?

Possible Duplicate:
My internal storage capacity is running low,  what can I do?

I want to install many apps on my Android phone, but the internal storage is small. How do I expand my Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray internal storage?

You can't. You can only cleanup things there, but not enlarge it (other than by adding external storage, i.e. sdcard). For cleanup, see e.g. What can I do to manage my phone's internal storage? and My internal storage capacity is running low, what can I do?

This question is not a duplicate of the proposed. This question is asking specifically about expanding storage on a specific device, while the other is talking about managing low storage situations. While the other will be helpful to the OP, they are not duplicates.

I am sorry, but you can't expend the internal storage; all you can do is move on SD card every application that accept that.
To do that, you can go in Settings -> Apps -> On SD card, and see that all the apps in that list are checked.

If any app is un-checked, click on it, and chose Move to SD card on its info page.
Also, if you root your phone, you can have complete control over the apps installed on internal memory, delete those that came pre-installed that you are not using, and maybe move more on SD card.

how do i root my phone?

See this answer for details, the method describe there works for Xperia Ray too


text:
How to avoid looping the album/playlist automatic?
I use the default "Play Music" music player app (v4.3.605.398337) for listening to music. Whenever it gets to the end of an album/playlist it automatically replays it.
I would like to avoid that behaviour but I can't find where/how to: does anybody know?
If relevant, my device is Galaxy Nexus.

Try updating the app to the latest version 4.3.615.48117.

You could try clicking the bottom right "repeat" icon, i.e, if you haven't tried that already.

OMG, I feel so stupid. Thanx varunyellina, I had not see that button


text:
Will an Android phone connect to Wi-Fi and download apps without a subscription?
I wanted to get an iPod, but hate Apple and like Google. I was told that the android equivalent of an iPod is any phone without a subscription.
Would an Android phone without a subscription be able to connect to Wi-Fi and download apps anyway? If not, what would be a real equivalent?

The equivalent of an iPod in the Android world would be one of these two:

A handset with no telephony at all, this will be WiFi only

An example of this is the Samsung Galaxy Player.

A prepaid handset phone, this will still connect to WiFi, but later on if you wanted, you could connect it to a phone network

An example of this is the LG Optimus V on Virgin Mobile.

As long as the manufacturer supports it (check the product page, but I think most do nowadays), you'll be able to download apps from the Google Play Store.  You will also be able to download from alternate stores depending on the device.  Finally, I think all Android devices can download from the Amazon AppStore.

Which one would you suggest? Are there any other models like the Player? Does it do as much?

Although the device can technically download apps from the Amazon App store, what matters is the user's location and where the Amazon account is registered. As an example, the Amazon app store doesn't allow users in India to download apps - free or otherwise - even if one has a valid Amazon account + credit card linked.

It depends on your budget.  If you look for sales on Amazon, Radio Shack, etc - you'll probably find the best deals on the prepaid phones since the carriers are competing with each other to get customers.  LG Optimus Elite is a good handset right now from Virgin Mobile for $130 USD if you're ok with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).  If you want 4.0 or 4.1, you can consider the unlocked Galaxy Nexus direct from Google for $349 USD or if you want a bigger device, get the Nexus 7 direct from Google for $199 USD.  The Nexus 7 would be my #1 choice right now, although it would be more like the iPad Mini.

Is it possible to root the Galaxy Player so that it runs Jelly Bean?

Glycan: That's a different question altogether - please ask it is a separate question.  Here's how to root the Galaxy Player: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/31895/how-do-you-root-the-samsung-galaxy-player  Not sure about Jelly Bean.  I'd get the OS level you want pre-installed when you buy the device.


text:
Is there an application / ROM that allows me to set the phone to "Guest" mode which I can configure?
I would like to be able to set my phone into Guest mode so people using it will not be able to "abuse" it while I give it to them.
Example of usage:

Child mode - prevent editing settings, making calls, installing applications etc.
Friend mode - prevent viewing text/email messages etc.
etc.

I have the MIUI ROM which has a pre-defined Guest mode - I'm looking for something which is fully/partially configurable - is there something like that?

Google has already put in code for this in Jelly Bean. It's just a matter of time before it comes out.

You might want to check for "app lockers" like e.g. App Lock, which allow you to password-protect apps, or use even more restrictive child protection apps like e.g. Child App Protector, which can sandbox an environment (also called "Kiosk mode").
A somehow "special" solution would be App Locker II: Fake Crash, which in "protected mode" displays a fake force-close message so people do not get the idea you protected something.

Eventually I found "Secure Kids Lock" to be best suited for my needs :)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=a.jp.co.happymeal.kidslock&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImEuanAuY28uaGFwcHltZWFsLmtpZHNsb2NrIl0.

Maybe Access control is a solution?

Guard Mode:
calls, notes, gallery, text messages will be hidden and launcher editing is disabled
Access control:
Choose what applications are password protected to run

Are you talking about apps?

@roxan He has MIUI, and I use MIUI jargon here. Guard Mode and Access control are two possibilities in MIUI to control the access to apps.


text:
How to reinstall Android on my HTC Explorer using a different language?
I have just moved back to England from China where I bought a HTC Explorer.
It has issues with Google Play, and its market place is a Chinese version so I want to reinstall the OS to an English version.
What is the best way to go about doing this?

You are having a XY problem, what if a solution wouldn't involve reinstalling Android? See this question.

Are you using a Chinese sim?

You could try changing your system language and then see if play store takes the cue. But if the system language has been coded into the build.prop then it would be of no use as your play store would still show Chinese version and apps specific to China. The only alternative you have is try to flash a European/WWE RUU for your phone. Read up on what RUU is else you could possibly brick your phone.
You problem is similar to this. Try this thread on XDA


text:
automatically turning on usb mass storage when usb is connected
Majority if not all times when I plug in my USB I want to use the USB Mass Storage functionality thus I was wondering there is a way to enable USB Mass Storage once a USB is connected.

Related: Why can't I see Android storage as a partition on PC?

Auto Mount Your SD Card should do that for you:

Automatically mount your SD card. Quit manually mounting your SD card every time you plug your phone into your computer.

I used that one one of my phones when I still connected it frequently via USB, and it did its job wonderfully. The app is available for free on the playstore, so nothing to lose :)


text:
Are hotspots sold inside phones?
My idea is this: It would be really convenient if i could buy a smartphone with an integrated mobile hotspot so i dont have to carry around a separate device. So is this sold? if so, by whom and approximately how expensive can this get? (assume carrier is irrelevant, i can easily switch to another if Verizon doesn't work)

I'd say most of the Android phone support this out of the box. You can also buy MiFi device if you want.

Some SmartPhones like the Samsung Galaxy S2 lets you create a Wi-Fi hotspot. Unfortunately, this would decrease the phone's battery life, which is why having a separate device would be better option.

The Motorolo Droid Bionic also supports a hotspot mode.   Don't even think about it if the phone isn't on the charger...

This feature is called WiFI Tethering, it comes with most modern Android devices. You can read more about it on our wifi-tether tag.


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Android Jelly Bean: fix search button

Possible Duplicate:
Samsung Galaxy S3 - after AT&T over the wire update - google search doesn’t find installed apps

I just upgraded my Nexus S from Android 4.0.something (I forget the subversion) to Android 4.1.1.
The magnifying glass button used to be really useful -- it would trigger a search function within whatever app I was using. For example pressing it within the Maps app would search for a place, or pressing it within the Facebook app would search for a friend.
But now, the magnifying glass button launches a google search no matter what the context is! This is extremely annoying and makes a lot of apps harder to use, especially Maps.
How can I use a setting or a patch to revert the magnifying glass button to its old behavior?

I can't answer your real question, but most apps have a "search" item accessible from their menu, which you typically get at by tapping the tower-of-three-squares button.

@roxan: This is seemingly not a dupe of the linked question (which is about 'dropping apps in the universal search' for apple patent reasons. Here the question is about the behaviour of the search button 'former: inapp search vs. now: send active app to background and launch google search')


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Upgrading Kernel
I am somehow confused about the kernel and how it plays out. I have a couple of questions:

Let's assume my device kernel reports its kernel as 3.0.8 (using uname -r). How can I figure out what configuration my kernel was build with?
If I get the latest linux kernel code (or any version above my current one) from its website and build it with my desired config, can I just replace my kernel only? If so, how?


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import contacts from sim to phone only
I have to set up an android phone (Orange Boston, Android 2.1-update1) for a colleague.
I added two accounts, one gmail and one exchange, both only used for mail & calendar.
Now my colleague has several contacts on the sim card that he wants to import onto the phone, and the phone only.
But when I click "Import from SIM" in the contacts app I have to choose an account (gmail or roadsync (exchange app)).
I do not want them to sync to anything, just be on the phone.
I found several guides that showed that there should be a "phone only, unsynched" option, but I don't have that.
What can I do to import the contacts phone only?

In the contacts menu do you have a menu item called accounts? It should show which accounts are synched up and also have the option to not sync to any account. You could turn sync to accounts off here and may then be able to import contacts to phone only.
Alternatively you could make sure the phone is not connected to the internet (wifi or data), import the contacts into one of the accounts, then go into settings and switch sync contacts off for both the accounts available.


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Google Nexus S won't turn on
My Samsung Nexus S is over a year old now. This morning I was doing a restart (just power down and back on) and it would not finish booting up. The word "Google" on the initial screen comes up, blinks and gets brighter and then just stays there.
I did the reboot sequence (hold power button and up volume) and got it to reboot but then needed to shut it down again and know it will not turn on.
Any help would be appreciated. I am running ICS 4.0.

Have you tried taking out the battery and holding the buttons to enter "download mode"? If you can there is a way to restore the OS.


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Karbonn A9 is not generating thumbnails
My friend has bought a Karbonn A9 phone one month ago and it has a little problem now. It has 16GB memory card and it is not generating thumbnails in the stock gallery very well. If I open a folder to view the images it only generate thumbnails for 1-4 pictures and others are blank.
I tried this solution without any luck. What can I do?

Have you considered using an alternative Gallery app like QuickPic? Far more options and faster as well.

@Sparx I know about the third party apps there are a lot of for this task but I'm trying to figure out why the stock gallery is not working correctly. After using the solution in the link I have mentioned in my post I'm able at least to generate most of the thumbnails but not completely yet. BTW Thanks for your response.

My logic at suggesting using another app was so it might help narrow the problem - is it the Android media scanner at fault or something with the images themselves etc.

Another possible solution - use a cache cleaner app like CacheMate to clean app caches and try again.

@Sparx already tried clean the cache by APP2SD app but still no luck with the stock gallery, and there is no problem with the images itself.


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Is it possible to disable Google Voice Search headset control in 4.1 Jelly Bean?
I flashed my Samsung Galaxy S i9000 with the RemICS-JB 3.0 ROM, and now long-press on my headset is hard-coded to start Google Voice Search, which doesn't interest me. I'd much rather have long-press be available to other apps (I used it as "rewind" in my podcast player). Is it possible to disable this hard-coded headset control, or disable Voice Search entirely? There isn't a separate app for it, and I can't seem to disable the Google Search app.

You can use one of the "headset button controls" available on the playstore, e.g. JAYS Headset Control or Philips Headset. Both allow you to define an app started automatically when your headset attaches, and as well to assign actions on short/long/combined headset button presses.
To make that better understandable, let's take the morse code: . is short, - is long press. So the default configuration e.g. does on...

. play/pause or answer incoming call
- increase volume
.- decrease volume
.. skip to next title or reject incoming call

and more, up to triple combinations. With most of these apps, actions can be freely configured.


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Hide / Add / Replace dock icons on home screen
I have Samsung galaxy Y and I do have 2 questions about dock settings on home screen.

Is it possible to Hide / Modify dock on home screen?
Is it possible to make it toggle on touch the home screen?

This functionality isn't available as standard in your default launcher, but the launcher is replaceable.  There are lots of alternatives out there, some require a minimum OS version.  Unless you've rooted your phone it looks like the maximum OS version you can be on is v2.3.5 (Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_y_s5360-4117.php).  So this rules out the newer breed of launchers which are based on the Android 4.x launcher.  BUT there are still a load of good launchers which will be compatible with your phone and will provide the functionality that you're looking for.  Have a look at:

Go Launcher
ADW Launcher

My first suggestion is to look into replacing your launcher. You can find several Home Launcher replacements in Google Play Market.
My current favorite is the Holo Launcher.
Alternatively

Hi designerWhoCodes, sorry I don't know your actual name :).
I tried alternate way you suggested as I don't want to use application if its possible by default settings. But I couldn't find any dock settings under settings from menu.

I provided clearer instructions via a new link. My name is Mark. I used the google authenticate and it created my user name from my blog.

Use Holo launcher: Really an awesome launcher, you will get an ICS look and you can hide Icons in the drawer; you can also add icons in the dock session. Use it and I bet you gonna really like the holo launcher.


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listen to radio on xperia ray with wireless headset
Does anyone know how I can still listen to the radio on my Xperia ray even with my Novero Rockaway Stereo Bluetooth Headset. I tried inserting a handsfree while connected to the bluetooth headset but it ignores the bluetooth handset alltogether and if there is no wired headset the radio won't start.
I know I can listen to online radio but I don't want that I want FM.
Thank you.

Most of phones (including Xperia series) does not have an internal FM radio antenna, so they need a wired headset to be inserted, in order to use its wire as antenna.
You cannot use FM radio until you plug a wired headset to the phone.

Can't I get something like an antenna to plug in but still hear the radio in the wireless headset?


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Installing a Boot Animation without using Root Explorer
I rooted my HTC Inspire, currently running JellyTime. I want to change my boot animation but the process requires me to access a system folder that is not visible using my current file explorer (ES File Explorer). Is there a way I can change my boot animation without using the app "Root Explorer"?

ES can read/write to protected folders, you just have to enable it in your settings. Open the settings menu (press the menu button, then select "Settings") and find the "Root Settings" item, then enable "Root Explorer" (operate with root permission) and "Mount File System" (allow writing to /system).
Alternatively, many devices/Android versions should allow you to simply put the bootanimation.zip file into /data/local instead of /system/media. You won't need a root explorer for this since /data/local is world writable. This doesn't work on all ROMs, though.
Screenshots for the ES settings:

That's an option I haven't seen, Thanks A Lot!


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Is it safe to restore the phone.apk from a stock Samsung ROM to CM9?
I was using the stock Samsung ROM on my Samsung S2 i9100. Changed over to Siyah Kernel and then made the leap to CyanogenMod 9.
Although I prefer and appreciate the myriad settings and usability of CM, there are a couple of issues where I preferred the functionality of the stock ROM:

The phone.apk - not just the dialer, but the incoming call screen
and the large size buttons to answer a call or to bring up the
keypad etc. I know I can use an alternate dialer like DialerOne or dwContacts but that doesn't help me to change the incoming call screen.
Pressing the physical home button to answer a call. There are times
when it's exceedingly difficult to use the onscreen slider and a
press to answer the call is far easier.
FM Radio - although Spirit Radio works as an alternative.

For items 1&2, can I overwrite the existing phone.apk and contacts.apk with the previous ones that I have backed up using Titanium Backup to return this functionality?

The answer is usually "No."  The framework changes introduced with manufacturers' UI overlays (Samsung's TouchWiz in the case of your Galaxy S II)  most likely make the stock apps like Phone, Contacts, Calendar, etc. incompatible with custom ROMs like CyanogenMod ROM that are based on AOSP (Android Open Source Project).

Would you know of some way to restore similar functionality @Chahk?

Not off the top of my head.  Although I imagine there are many 3rd-party apps out there that would help with customizing the incoming call screen.

Have tried some, not all. Don't work reliably per my experience.


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Why is bricking possible?
No matter how messed up a desktop is, you can always format it and reinstall of a live boot. Why can't you do the same thing with a droid?

You could brick a computer if you wiped out or corrupted the BIOS to the point that you'd most likely have to manually reprogram the chip with a special connector. With direct regards to your question, though, this seems like kind of an apples and oranges comparison. Computers support multiple boot mediums (USB, optical disc, hard drive, etc) whereas a phone/tablet simply isn't designed that way. Some can be reflashed with desktop utilities like Odin, but where are you going to get a live version of Android (for ARM, not x86) and how are you going to boot it on a phone?

@eldarerathis That sounds like it should be posted as an answer ;)

The risk of really "bricking" a phone is not that high as it may seem, at least with more recent models, as there are multiple levels of safety-guards in place: If you break your regular system, there's a fallback possible to the recovery mode. If that's broken as well, there are things like Fastboot in place. Only if you break the lowest level, and e.g. flash an incompatible radio image (the radio image is the layer bridging the hardware to a software layer, to simplify the explanation -- see also Al's comparision with the PC's BIOS in his comment to your question: if the BIOS is broken, you no longer can start your computer), your device is really "bricked".
To understand the difference, you should also see what is different between installing your "desktop OS" on a computer and flashing your Android device: Installing your desktop OS works on a file level. That is, you boot from e.g. a DVD, and then copy files to your harddisk. On Android, flashing a ROM means to copy the entire file system at once. And you cannot boot a live system from DVD or the like -- especially when newer devices like the Nexus 4 come without even a sdcard slot.

I'd just like to emphasize that the risk of "bricking" is still relatively high, mainly due to the ease of running powerful software such as adb and fastboot. A single mistyped fastboot command may be sufficient to prevent the device from connecting via USB, therefore preventing it from being fixed.


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How do you root the Samsung Galaxy Player?
How can I root my Samsung Galaxy Player 5.0?

Have you ever rooted an android device before?

Rooting is not for everyone. You will be best off by waiting for the official update, which should come to your device before the end of the year. Just be sure to keep your data sync on- or otherwise check for system updates often.

For your second question please refer to this question and the OS-upgrade one you linked, they're intended to be generic and cut off individual ROM questions.  If you have a specific problem while trying to flash a ROM you've found for your device, please do (separately) ask that sort of question!

After enabling the USB Debugging option, SuperOneClick can be used to root both Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0 and 5.0 handsets.  Download the latest version from here, and the walkthrough is here.
In terms of updated OS versions, your best bet is custom ROMs that can be found on various forums like XDA-developers.

Chahk is right. Your best bet is CM10-

This is going to take some work and some intense reading.
Check out this XDA Dev forum
The fastest way to root Samsung devices (IMHO) is superoneclick.


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Can't get Google Play after flashing firmware
I've recently rooted my phone in pursuit of freeing up the internal memory from system apps. I then tried uninstalling Gmail by deleting the file and then trying to reinstall it from the play store but the apk deletion seemed to put it in a strange state where it disappeared from the phone (after a while when the icon was first removed and replaced by the default android app icon and then once after resetting the phone, it didn't exist any more; but still the play store considers it as installed). I tried flashing my phone to the same firmware as I had earlier (XSG), and now I cant get Google play (only the outdated Google market, which doesn't allow any installs from the play store online).
My phone runs on Android 2.2 Froyo. Any idea what to do?
Thanks

I then tried uninstalling Gmail by deleting the file and then trying to reinstall it from the play store

You can't install it from the Play Store, you can only update an existing version.  This is to prevent phones that haven't met Google's official criteria from getting the core Google apps, though there are workarounds (see below).

the apk deletion seemed to put it in a strange state where it disappeared from the phone ... but still the play store considers it as installed

Deleting the .apk is akin to deleting acrobat.exe from Windows without uninstalling Adobe Acrobat.  It won't run since it doesn't exist, but the system still thinks it's installed and there may be other junk left behind.
To fix this you'd need to flash the Google Apps package; this question might help with that.  Since you're only suffering from the Market not auto-updating right now, you can either try to trigger the update or manually install the new version; see this question for that.
In the future don't delete apps you want!  Or at least back them up :P


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Unable to send from outlook email account synced on phone, error - Unable to sign or encrypt message. Certificate not installed
I have my work outlook account synced on my Samsung. For the first month, sending and receiving emails from my phone worked fine. Currently, I am able to receive emails but when I try to send them I get the error "Unable to sign or encrypt message. Certificate not installed" and I can no longer send on my account.
Does anyone know how I can fix this?
Thanks!

There's a known issue on Samsung devices. Please see here: http://webcazine.com/7630/how-to-solve-unable-to-sign-or-encrypt-message-certificate-not-installed-error-on-galaxy-s4/


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When I plug my headphones into the Galaxy S 3 it won't let me use Google Play Music
It brings up a notification telling me that headphones have been plugged in and gives me about 5 apps to choose from. I can't change these apps and Play Music isn't one of them.
How can I use Google Play Music with my headphones?

Can you launch Google Play Music without headphones in? Perhaps there is some first-launch configuration that has to happen before it registers the Intent.

And what speaks against using the app drawer (or a widget placed on one of your homescreens) to simply start the music app, headphones plugged or not?


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Are there any issues if buying a Samsung Galaxy S3 without memory?
If I buy a phone without memory or minimal memory, can I change to a memory card that I buy somewhere else? I was thinking of a class 10 32gb or 64gb.
Are there any concerns with doing it this way?

Are you talking about removable storage (microSDXC)? It's not required, and it's expandable up to 64GB.
Without removable storage, you will be using the built-in storage which can be either 16GB or 32GB.
Source

I was thinking of the internal storage then. Should I be buying a phone with a Class 10 storage and when I reach the extent of 16GB or 32Gb, then invest in an external 64Gb? I am upgrading from my $50 nokia so the leap is huge.

On this page at the bottom is some customization before buying. The memory dropdown appears to be internal memory then. http://www.techrific.com.au/product_info.php?products_id=3694

Thank you for the help. I understand things now. The selection I am talking about must be external.


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How can I sort, filter and tag files/images in Android ICS 4.0?
A little background
Im a bit into graphic design, digital painting etc, and I like to draw on the run, away from my desktop. For drawing, I often need reference materials - some pictures of things I would like to draw. While drawing/designing a futuristic car, Id like to be able to look at pictures of some modern cars, planes, helicopters, materials etc.
Looking for reference on the Internet on my android tablet is cumbersome, and I dont have Internet access everywhere. I do have a big library of reference pictures on my SD card tho.
I cant really use it as reference yet, because looking manually for pictures of things I want to draw is a LOT of work. Designign something, say a cyborg, Id have to dig through the files searching for "human", "metal", "machine" and "mechanism" pictures.
So, what do I want?
I would like to tag and sort for pictures/files with tags similar to those I mentioned ("human", "machine", "engine" etc), but i dont want to upload it anywhere or use it online. I dont want to share and want to keep it local, usable without Internet access.
If I could display all the chosen pictures on one screen, it would be a big bonus.
How could I do that on my Android tablet? I'm using ICS 4.0.

As long as pictures/videos are involved, you might want to take a look at Monte Gallery. This app offers you a.o. the feature to add descriptions and tags to pictures, and then lets you browse them by tags. It also offers browsing by location, and (as you can see by the screenshots on its market page), a nice "calendar view", grouping pictures by "date taken". Only thing missing is to combine those using a search mask, like "show me all pictures tagged foobar taken between [dates] on [location]" :)


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Making the browser remember its current location when minimized
When I minimize the Android browser, it seems to forget what page it had open. What setting will make it remember?
Here are the steps I take. First, I load a website in the Android browser to completion, and then minimize the browser. At this point, if I press the menu button to see the apps that are running in the background, the preview still shows me the site open in the browser. When I select the browser, though, it comes up with the site about:blank (my home page) up.
This is under 4.1/Jelly Bean. When I had 4.0/Ice Cream Sandwich, this didn't occur. While searching, I came across a question asking for roughly the opposite behavior that suggested that memory might be the issue; in my case, there's plenty of RAM free, so that's not it.
I would prefer for the page to simply remain open, as it does when you minimize a browser on a desktop, but if the browser just remembered the URL and reloaded when it was brought back, that'd be okay, too. How can I set this up?
By "minimize," I may be referring to pressing the "home" button and opening another app, or pressing the "other running apps" button and selecting one of them. The device is a Galaxy Nexus.

Not an answer (since you specified the Android Broswer) but a possible and (I find) effective work-around: I use Dolphin browser which does exactly this, even with multiple tabs.

How are you "minimizing" your browser? Are you pressing the back button?

@rnh16 Sometimes I press the home button and open a new app; other times I press the "other apps" button and select something else that's running.

I just tried this on 3 Jellybean devices I had handy. Unfortunately all of them behaved normally, so I couldn't replicate your issue. Hopefully someone who had a similar experience might answer and provide the solution. Ideally, even if you have low RAM, Android would automatically "save" your browser state and automatically load it back into memory when you try accessing it again. - Side note: I suggest adding your device to the question, it may be a device issue.

@rnh16 Thanks, at least now I know that what I'm seeing is considered abnormal. (Before, I thought maybe it was just that the default behavior changed on Jelly Bean.) I've edited the question.

I had this same behaviour and figured it out. Go to Settings, Developer Options, scroll to the bottom and uncheck the Don't keep activities option. My Xoom didn'thave this sselected but my galaxy nexus did. Not sure if its a default or if I checked it accidentally at some point . Anyway, that solved it for me.


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How to restore internal flash storage after reformatting?
I have an HOTT MD500 MID. Previously, when I plugged this into my computer, Thunar found two storage spaces, the first being the microSD card, the second, another storage space inside the device. Recently, I wanted to reinstall the device, so I first used gparted to reformat both of these storage spaces to FAT32 filesystems, then used the factory reset option on the device.
During the reformatting with gparted, and error appeared preventing me from reformatting the internal storage. Now, when I plug the device into my computer, Thunar no longer can see the internal storage space. Also, when I go to Settings --> SD card & MID storage, “Internal Flash Storage” reports “Available Space 0”, while the “MID system storage” reports “Available Space 79 MB”.
I found some similar threads at Is internal storage formatting harmful?, which did not work for me, and Missing internal flash memory and SD card does not mount, which provides instructions specific to another model, but which I do not know how to adapt these instructions to my model of MID. Using the factory reset option in my device did not seem to help.

Why is the internal storage no longer visible in Thunar? How can I restore it to its original state?
Is that normal that “Internal Flash Storage” is reported as “0”? Will this give me any problems?

You mentioned that an "error appeared" while trying to format the internal storage.  What was the error message?

I do not know and cannot recreate the error as now my computer can no longer see the drive.

Why is the internal storage no longer visible in Thunar? How can I restore it to its original state?

I do not know how to adapt these instructions to my model of MID

First of all you need to get adb working (Android Debug Bridge if you want to learn more). Specific information regarding this is available at ADB for Android Developers (ARCHOS Internet Tablet) as linked in the answer you provided.
When you have adb ready, you should be able to run adb shell. This will give you the ability to give commands to adb and we can start accessing the device. I'm quoting the answer you linked here:

If the connection is OK, it will start a server and after e few seconds show the '$' prompt. this means you are connected to the tablet and have direct access to the linux shell. If you type 'ls' you will see a list of folders that contain the operating system and all supporting files that make your tablet work. Now navigate to the folder containing the Flash file system by typing:

cd ./dev/block/vold

If you now type 'ls' again you should see three or four folders that have numbered names. One of them is '31:8'. This is the folder that points to the internal flash. Now we can fix our problem by recreating the MS-DOS (FAT32) file system on this partition. Type the following:

mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/block/vold/31:8/

This will fix the FAT32 filesystem. Now leave the shell by typing 'exit', disconnect the USB and restart your tablet. On my system this made internal storage re-appear, and after that it also mounted the sd-card. Problem solved.

Please follow these steps and report if it works or not, please supply any error messages and I'll try to help you further to the best of my abilities.
Is that normal that “Internal Flash Storage” is reported as “0”? Will this give me any problems?
This is likely just due to the fact that the internal storage isn't detected by the device. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's broken or lost forever.
I'd also like to add as a final point that messing with the partitions on the internal storage is usually a very bad idea. Don't do it unless you know exactly what you're doing and why. You should always assume that messing with partitions can lead to data loss.

I have also formatted my internal storage ( I know I am dumb) and a tried your solution. Everything worked well until mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/block/vold/179:0/ (I used 179:0 because it's the internal sd card on my huawei ideos s7 slim). Now it says
mkdosfs: can't open '/dev/block/vold/179:0/': Not a directory. What did a do wrong?

The problem is likely that the internal SD card to FAT32.  While this may not stop Android from working it does screw up many file system related commands/programs, permissions, etc.
Android usually uses ext3, ext4, or yaffs2 for the internal SD card.  The manufacturer may be able to tell you which is the one they use.  You can also try formatting the internal card to ext3 and doing a factory reset; if it already successfully installed to FAT32, it shouldn't have any problems with an EXT file format.
If in fact the manufacturer does use FAT32 for the file system (which would be very odd), it's possible that it uses a different cluster size than how you formatted it (ie 4, 8, 16 or 32 kb), and the file utility is relying on that information to determine sizes and it is incorrect - producing a nonsensical output of 0.  Many manufacturers also encode information into the boot sectors, etc. that you may have inadvertently wiped.

Just press Power + Vol + then tap Wipe Data and press Yes. Hope this helps.


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Why is it that whenever I partition my sd card outside CWM it doesn't get recognized by my phone?
I have a Samsung Galaxy Ace, running on its official CM7 ROM. I have an 8gb sd card and I just want to make a clean install of everthing starting with the sd card's partition.
I've had sd-ext partition troubles when I partitioned my sd card using CWM, so I went and did it using GParted. Currently it has:

6+ Gb FAT32 primary partition
1 Gb EXT4 logical partition

It gets recognized by my laptop, no problem. But my phone won't even detect it. Any ideas why this is happening? Thanks.

I fixed it by creating the sd-ext partition as another primary partition. Works fine now. I hope this helps somebody.


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How to track reboots in Jelly Bean
Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Verizon) with Android 4.1.1 (unrooted).
I seem to be having unusually frequent reboots of my phone; sometimes multiple times in a day. Certainly much more frequent than with Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.4).
Additionally, my battery life seems to be lower since the upgrade from 4.0.4. (It might be my imagination, but it might be running hotter than I remember, too.)
I've been looking for some common denominator but I'm baffled.
What can I do to try to find out what is causing these crashes?
(No suggestions that require rooting, please.)

Did you consider any of the monitoring tools available on the playstore, like e.g. SystemPanel or System Tuner? They constantly monitor your device, so you could check the collected data even after a reboot. Though they might not be able to collect the required logcat data, the collected information might prove useful.

@Izzy: I'll have a look at those.

I played around with them a while ago. From SystemPanel you would need the paid version for recording (the free version only permits live-view). SystemTuner might be your first choice: Record (optionally at boot) activities in the background [...] Display log(cat) for all/one process (even on JellyBean Android 4.1) -- and that's for the (linked) free version. // Crossing fingers -- keep us updated, so I might convert it to an answer if it's worth it :)

Another thing worth investigating, look in /proc/last_kmsg, that's the last kernel log prior to reboot...

System Tuner looks like it could help you figure out what's going on. Excerpts from the app's description:

Display log(cat) for all/one process (even on JellyBean Android 4.1)
Record (optionally at boot) activities in the background
Record all apps or all processes
Allows analyzing past recordings without limits

I didn't try it for this special purpose, but the description suggests you can check what was going on when the device went down even afterwards: which processes were running, memory and CPU status, and more. As it is able to read system logs fine even on JellyBean, it should be able to give you the information needed to figure out what is going on.


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Unable to connect Xperia-Tipo to PC?
For last 2 days, I am trying to connect my new Xperia-Tipo phone to PC but unable to connect. My PC's OS is Windows XP - SP3.

When I connect to PC, it is asking for PC companion installation.  But when I double click on Setup.exe its doing nothing.
So I downloaded PC companion (Version 2.1) and I tried to connect, but its not detecting my phone.

In trouble shooting its saying please check its properly connected or not. Yes its connected and my phone is charging too. I switch off my phone & tried its waste of time. If i see in my computer its not detecting any drive for USB.

Try use some third party applications instead of PC Companion like: Wondershare MobileGO or MyPhoneExplorer. Both of these are free.
I recommend Wondershare MobileGo. It has a full functional free version and can automatically download and install the drivers.

Just came across a solution thought I should share it on Microsoft's Support site.
The pertinent section that worked, titled "Method 3: Disable and re-enable the USB controller" of the above page. (For the benefit of others who do not wish to see the page, it is quoted here)

Use Device Manager to disable and re-enable all the USB controllers.
  This lets the controllers recover the USB port from its unresponsive
  condition. The USB controllers represent the USB ports in Device
  Manager. If you are not comfortable with advanced troubleshooting, try
  the steps in the "Workaround" section.
To disable and re-enable the USB controllers, follow these steps:

Click Start, and then click Run.
  Note If you are running Windows Vista, click Start, and then use the
  Start Search box.
Type devmgmt.msc, and then click OK. Device Manager
  opens.
Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers.
  Note You might have to scroll down the list to find this item.
Right-click the first USB controller under Universal Serial Bus
  controllers, and then click Uninstall to remove it.
Repeat step 4 for
  each USB controller that is listed under Universal Serial Bus
  controllers.
Restart the computer. After the computer starts, Windows
  will automatically scan for hardware changes and reinstall all the USB
  controllers that you uninstalled.
Check the USB device to see whether
  it is working. If the USB port recognizes the device and if you can
  use the device, you are finished.

But instead of removing it and restarting, instead, I just disabled it and re-enabled it (please note this will fail if you use a USB keyboard).

Disconnect from PC.
Go to Settings/Xperia/connectivity/USB connection.
Change from MTP to MSC.
Reconnect, and it should work.

Go to Settings > Developer Options, tick off USB debugging, then it'll work!
It worked for me.

Look for the file wpdmtp.inf on the Internet; this is a needed driver. After downloading it to your PC, put the file in the Windows/inf directory, overwriting any existing files.
Then, open the Device Manager on your PC. Go to portable devices, and re-install the controller. Look for the necessary driver in the correct folder.
Good luck. This works for me.


text:
Do apps included in the gApps zip get updated via Google Play?
While using alternative ROMs like CyanogenMod 9(as i currently am), one flashes an additional zip file called gApps which contains apps provided by Google.
As Google releases newer versions of applications, will the newer versions be updated via Google Play or do I need to manually flash a newer version of the gapps.zip?
I'm asking because an update to the Google Play market app was recently released (which includes the ability to remove apps from the ALL MY APPS section) but I still haven't seen my market app updating itself.

I am on unofficial CM10 on LGP500. The Google's apps were installed through gapps.zip and are getting updated.

Short answer: Gapps will be updatable via Play Store. You can set them to update automatically if you will (personally, I don't. I always try to find a free wifi hotspot to do updates ;)
More specific answer: The Play Store app updates itself silently in the background; you will never be asked for an update.
Longer answer: Gapps must be installed separately because the apps in the Gapps set are not open-source. It was a compromise reached between Google and ROM devs. In essence, ROM devs are free to create their own version of ROM as long as they exclude Gapps, but Google then went further to provide an installable Gapps.
That is why Gapps' updatezip are rarely updated; after all, Gapps still have the ability to be upgraded via Play Store.

Gapps are not included in CyanogenMod by default. You have to flash them separately through recovery. These apps will will show update notifications automatically when connected to the internet. In the case of the play store app you will not see it updating in the foreground. It downloads and updates without any notification. In case it hasn't updated you can search in google for the latest apk and install it.

Voted -1, because whether Gapps update automatically or not totally depends on whether you allow them to update automatically ... or not.


text:
Any way to schedule a passive profile-change? (connectivity, volume etc.)
What I am wondering is if there is any way to make Android change its profiles passively from one state to the other at e.g. 3 pm in the afternoon local time:

Through Android internally (with some tweaks)
Through an Android app
Through a 3rd party mod (Cyanogen etc.)
Through ...?

Whereas the state change should be:

From "Airplane mode" (set) to Wifi/3G
From "Mute"/vibration (set) to maximum volume, i.e. visible sound
Optionally: From E-Mail/Notifications on-demand (Pull) to "Push", i.e. the moment I get out of airplane mode and mute/vibrate mode, I want to get the push alerts of the last hours.

I wonder if 3. is possible, I never changed much concerning my notification settings.
Any Android version welcome, currently I run 4.0, but plan to upgrade to CM10.
What I don't want (and don't have) is NCF, because it involves me being active.
The whole reason for having a scheduled, predefined activity is that I can "set and forget" it and can focus on my work being assured that I will keep my deadline or whatever. I don't want to be actively involved.

Use llama or tasker app.

Try the Profile Scheduler app.
With Profile Scheduler, you can define many 'profiles' (a set of settings covering Wifi On/Off, Data-Sync On/Off, Volume settings, Display Brightness, Bluetooth state, and many others -- for full set of settings, please refer to the Play Store page I linked above).
After creating your desired profiles (e.g., Sleep, Work, Outdoors, Driving, etc.), in the next tab (of the app) you can create 'rules' that will trigger a profile to automatically be activated. The 'rules' can be as simple as a 'time-of-day schedule' rule, or something more complex like geo-location based rules, wifi SSID-based rules, etc.

Can you expand on that a bit?

Have you checked the linked app? With Profile Scheduler, you first create a set of profiles (Wifi on/off, volume, auto datasync, etc.). Then, you use its "Scheduler" facility to set which profile to trigger at a certain time of day (or combination of time & day, or any other state the app can detect).

Answers should stand on their own. It'd be great if you added that information to the answer.

Hmm... I really don't want to repeat information that can easily be read in the Play store... but I'll edit my answer anyways.

There's a (relatively) new app out called Silence. There is also an ad-free paid version.

Silence allows you to toggle your ringer, Wi-fi, Bluetooth, and airplane mode settings automatically over scheduled intervals.
Features:

Simple, intuitive Holo-themed interface
Schedule events that occur once, or repeat on certain days of the week
Change your ringer to silent, vibrate, or normal mode
Turn Wi-fi, Bluetooth, and airplane mode on and off
Change your settings back automatically when the scheduled event ends

Lifehacker had a review.

The Tasker app will allow you to do this, although this app can be daunting for a new user.
Tasker allows you to automate task on you Android device - the things you would like should be easily possible.

Another good app for changing the volume is Audio Mode Switcher There you can do everything according to automatically switching the audio-profile in one App.
You can define a weekly schedules to switch to a given profile. You can schedule multiple start and end times (i.e. when you go to sleep etc.).
It also offers a calendar integration, where you can choose to switch to a certain mode at a defined event. These events can be chosen according to their calendar and/or keyword based - I think this is very useful i.e. I can mute the phone if the word "cinema" is in the title and mute at all events in my work-calendar.
Furthermore location-based switching is also possible.


text:
Setup Tor server on my Android
How do I setup a Tor server on my Android tablet?
I can install the Orbot client, but how do I contribute to the tor network?
I have my tablet on a WiFi the most of the day so it would be nice to contribute to the bandwidh of the Tor network.

Did this solution work for you? It didn't for me as I am getting a "port unreachable error" . I want to put my grandfathered unlimited data plan to good use!

Select the Settings button () on the top-right corner. In the Settings screen, scroll down to the "Relays" section and tick the box next to "Relaying - Enable your device to be a non-exit relay". The relay will listen to port 9001 by default, but you can adjust that by changing the relay port.


text:
TeamViewer QuickSupport on Jelly Bean
Currently the TeamViewer QuickSupport v7.0.640 doesn't run on Samsung Galaxy Note 2 (N7100). This is not a hardware problem but a problem with various devices running on Android 4.1.1
The problem seems to be a missing library, I get a handled exeption:
could not load application module:
Cannot load library:
link_image[1892]:
1936 could not load needed library 'libsurfaceflinger_client.so'
for 'libjniscreenshot23.so'
(load_library[1094]: Library 'libsurfaceflinger_client.so' not found)

So I managed to get a libsurfaceflinger_client.so by searching google.
According to this XDA Post i tried to push the library to /system/lib/ and then chmod rw-r--r--
After launching the App I now get a Force Close due to an unhandled exception:
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError in Class:
com.teamviewer.incomingremotecontrollib.activity.MainActivity in Method:
onCreate()

Any ideas? My guess is that the downloaded library is not for Jelly Bean.


text:
Which market am I currently in?
I am on an SGS2 purchased in Germany, located in the UK, sometimes using VPN to the US and have used Market Enabler to change Play Store codes in the past. By now I am confused as to what local market I am actually seeing when I open the app. How can I find out which Play Store I am being shown by Google?
In particular, I am confused because I am trying to purchase a UK app and receive the 'This item is not available in your country' message although I am in the UK and have a UK IP.
Edit: Could it be related to the registered credit card?
This page suggests to change the Google account globally.

This is the first time I hear anyone suggesting changing the location of your Google account. Note that  Google uses your credit card as well as your IP address and SIM card, so event if you are browsing the UK site, but don't have a UK-issued credit card, you can't purchase anything from there. A good way to tell between markets is by looking at the currency being displayed. (£ for UK)


text:
How to make an unrooted phone use or detect ad-hoc Wi-Fi?
I have an unrooted Android 2.3.6 phone and I want it to connect to the ad-hoc connection made on my Ubuntu.
I referred to some already existing questions here but none seem to be the solutions for unrooted phones.
How do I do this?

As far as I know, there isn't a way. It's been requested since 2008

This is unfortunately not something you can do without root. I found a fully fleshed out discussion about solutions and alternative options on Stack Overflow.
User Andy notes:

[T]his is currently not natively supported in Android, although Google has been saying it will be coming ever since Android was officially launched.
While not natively supported, the hardware on every android device released to date do support it. It is just disabled in software, and you would need to enable it in order to use these features.
It is however, fairly easy to do this, but you need to be root, and the specifics may be slightly different between different devices. Your best source for more informationa about this, would be XDA developers: https://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=564. Most of the existing solutions are based on replacing wpa_supplicant, and is the method I would recommend if possible on your device. For more details, see http://szym.net/2010/12/adhoc-wifi-in-android/.

User Silveri also notes that there are other options:

[I]f you just want to share your laptop's internet connection via Wi-fi using any means necessary, then you have at least two more options:

Use your laptop as a router to create a wifi hotspot using Virtual Router or Connectify. A nice set of instructions can be found here.
Use the Wi-fi Direct protocol which creates a direct connection between any devices that support it, although with Android devices support is limited* and with Windows the feature seems likely to be Windows 8 only.

*Some phones with Android 2.3 have proprietary OS extensions that enable Wi-fi Direct (mostly newer Samsung phones), but Android 4 should fully support this (source).

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


text:
Modify file without creating a copy
Is it technically possible to edit a file directly and don't create a copy inside the application directory ?
I want to annotate an image or a PDF directly but every application saves a copy instead of modify my file.

This is nothing to do with Android, but any way that's the norm in general.

There is nothing which would prevent apps from modifying data files in-place. If they don't do so, then it's because the app developer decided so.


text:
How to browse file:/// URLs on my Android device?
I have some extensive documentation in HTML format that I want to carry around with me. On my old Gingerbread phone, I was able to save the entire "site" onto the phone's sd card and browse it with the url
file:///mnt/sdcard/mysite/index.html.

Unfortunately, this is not working with my new ICS phone (which uses Chrome as the browser); trying different urls produce either a 404 "file not found" or a 403 "access denied".
Can anyone point me to a read me on how to do this?

Are you sure you are using a correct path? Where the sdcard is mounted depends heavily on your device and ROM. Seometimes it gets mounted to multiple locations at once. See if you can find them all and test. I can only test on JB and it works fine for me in the stock browser.

Err... No, I'm not sure. That's why I asked.

You can find the exact location of a file with most file managers. (by long pressing it and then tapping Properties in Root Browser Lite for example) http://i.imgur.com/LaWon.png Try /mnt/sdcard, /sdcard, /storage/sdcard0. Make sure there's no fullstop at the end of the URI

Are you including the period at the end of the URL you've given as an example?

These questions are related: How can I open an HTML file I have copied from PC to SD Card of Phone? How can I can open local files in the default Android browser?

From the URLs shown by the astro file browser, I'm looking in the right place: /mnt/external1. Is it possible that the problem is permissions related? Remember, I don't always get a 404, I'm often getting a 403 - ACCESS_DENIED.

/mnt/external1 isn't the same as the /mnt/sdcard in the URI you have.  Assuming you've accounted for that, does file://localhost/mnt/external1/mysite/index.html work?

Some phones like the Galaxy Nexus show /sdcard/ as the file path in a file browser but if you try to open the file then the path is given as /sdcard0/.  It's common with phones that don't have an SD slot so maybe it's the issue with your phone.

Re-phrasing your question to reflect your real problem:

How can I read my extensive, HTML-formatted documentation on my Android device?

there is an answer which would make it easy, comfortable, and even less storage-consuming:
You could convert the entire documentation to an eBook using Calibre on your PC. A good format would be e.g. ePub. As a result, your entire documentation would be packed into a single file. Now check the playstore for a nice eBook reader (my recommendation: Moon+ Reader or its payed version, Moon+ Reader Pro), and install it on your device. Et voila: You have your documentation available on your device. Added pluses (with Moon+ Reader): You can even set multiple bookmarks, highlight text, make annotations. And due to the integrated OPDS support and even pre-configured online libraries, you'd have a bunch of books at your fingertips.

Adding a dictionary app like ColorDict Dictionary Wikipedia or Fora Dictionary plus some (freely available) dictionaries, you could even look up things whenever needed, online or offline, as the second screenshot2 shows.

You also can type in termux xdg-open example.htm to open your file in Chrome.

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


text:
Email accounts suddenly disappear from Samsung stock client
I have a Samsung Galaxy S, rooted with ClockworkMod a good while ago. Since about two months, my imap accounts spontaneously disappear from the Samsung stock email.
When launched, the email app asks me if I want to configure it with an account.
I have heard from other people experiencing this, but never discovered a solution.

May I suggest switching to CM9 and/or the stock Android mail client? Switching to CM9 was the best decision I ever made with my Galaxy S.

I am not against this. I was considering CWM10 though.(Reason for 9?). This doesn't answer the question though.

That's why I made it a comment. There is no stable marked CM10 release for the SGS (yet). And the improvements are minor. That's why I suggest CM9 (9.1.0 to be precise).

Maybe I am missing something, but you might be confusing Cyangenmod with Clockworkmod. Clockworkmod is just a rooted version of the samsung android.

No no, I really suggest you try out Cyanogenmod 9.1.0 for the Galaxy S in case you are still on the bloated Samsung stock firmware.

I WILL do it, maybe today or tomorrow. But this doesn't solve the question, it just circumvents the problem for me.

I know. But I think that's it's likely that our never find a answer to your question, plus the stock client or k9 are far superior to the Samsung client (IMHO).


text:
Is there someway to make "My Maps" in Google Maps available offline with location markers?
I see how to save a map area offline on the Google Maps app, but how can I make sure the markers layer on "My Maps" is saved for offline use?
I see how to view it as a layer, but are all the layers saved for offline use?  (Seems unlikely and a waste of resources.) How do you save a select few for offline map use?

It seems to me that you are talking about your "Starred locations" when you're talking about the markers layer on "My Maps"? These are stored in Google Bookmarks and can be exported -- including the locations.
As a general note: The way Googe has set up its Maps/Geo operations leads to a likely reality that Google will "never" provide good offline capabilities. Your proper solution comes from something that does. And that something is increasingly likely using OpenStreetMap. My personal recommendations for apps that can also (easily enough) handle your exported starred Google Maps locations are OsmAnd and Maverick. See OSM Wiki for details and more options.

I tried saving map data from Google Maps onto my phone, not even trying to save marker layers, and found it unreliable at best. I eventually decided to invest in a satnav app that had maps stored locally on the phone, along with favorites.
I have tried CoPilot (expensive and crashy but has the features of a true satnav, ) and Scout (much cheaper more reliable, better voice navigation but fewer features; no way-points and limited avoid area/route support).

Save locations for offline use

Search for a location.
Select the white info log at the bottom and scroll down. You'll see "Save map to use offline" at the bottom.
Google Maps will prompt you with the option "Save this map?" Go ahead and save it.
You'll see the "Map saved" confirmation.
Name the offline map.
To see the offline map, go to your profile.

The maximum size for the area you can download is 50km x 50km. If you try to save an area bigger than that, you'll be asked to zoom in on a smaller area.
If you're already on a map that you want to save, you can save it without searching for a place.

Move the map to the area you want to save.
Touch inside the search box at the top, and scroll down to the bottom of the page.
Touch Save map to use offline.

You'll delete your saved offline maps if you clear your application data on your device. But you won't delete your saved offline maps if you sign out of the Google Maps app, delete your Search History, or delete your Maps history.
To make sure that your map has the most up-to-date information, your saved maps need to be updated at least once every 30 days. If you don’t update them, they’ll expire and be removed from your saved maps list.
Since you cannot search an offline map, save several smaller maps covering the same area. Name the map after the area.

References:

Mashable - Your Guide to Saving Google Maps Locations for Offline Use
Google Maps Help - Download areas & navigate offline


text:
Samsung Galaxy GT-S5300B dead / bricked (?)
I own a Samsung Galaxy Pocket (GT-S5300B) and, last week, I mistakenly erased a partition issuing the command:
cat /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 > /dev/zero

(It was either that or /proc/mmcblk0p1, I can't remember o.O)
Now, my phone is dead. It doesn't turn on at all, in either download, recovery or any other mode (PS: It has no fastboot mode, as it appears - it's a cheaper Samsung smartphone). I've tried using a "USB Jig", kind of outta nowhere, just to see what happened, but it remains dead :/ If I plug it to a power source, either usb data cable or the charger, it does get warm, like the battery was charging, but it won't turn on by clicking the turn on/off button, no way... :S
Does anybody know how to fix such thing? I run Linux Mint 13 (but it's the same in other Linux distros or Windows) and lsusb will return:
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 04f2:b044 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd Acer CrystalEye Webcam
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 046d:c517 Logitech, Inc. LX710 Cordless Desktop Laser
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 045e:0745 Microsoft Corp. Nano Transceiver v1.0 for Bluetooth

No Samsung ..., like there was before, or anything at all =/ The webcam, logitech and the ms transceiver are connected to my comp, so neither one of those is the phone hehe.
I have this on /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules:
# Samsung
SUBSYSTEM==”usb”, SYSFS{idVendor}==”04e8″, MODE=”0666″

Does anybody know if cracking the phone open will be any good to do anything? I don't have a RIFF Box or that kind of stuff, but I really don't want to send it to Samsung repair service unecessarily...
Thanks for you time already! If anyone has an idea, I'm most ready listening!

Have you tried getting into Odin mode?  Most Samsung devices don't use Fastboot.  See http://android.stackexchange.com/a/15370/1465

It doesn't look good I'm afraid.  You would need to be able to see 'something' relating to the phone from a 'lsusb' command to be able to use odin to recover your device without cracking it open.
You've probably already seen this, but it looks like the JTagBox is your best bet.
Good luck!

Thanks man I was afraid that (JTag way) was the only option, but at this point I'm glad there IS an option, hehe. I've actually just sent my device to Samsung's repair service in town today, but I guess that's what they'll do over there (I'll see if I can find out in a week or so and I'll write the details underneath my post if I can). Thanks a lot!


text:
Why is sftp (client) so slow on Android?
I've encountered this across numerous Android clients on several devices and I don't understand it.  Why is sftp so slow?  For instance, transferring a single large file from my laptop vs my Nexus 7 on my home LAN I am getting a factor of 20 difference in speeds.  The Nexus 7 is getting about 250-300KBps while the laptop is getting 5-6MBps.  The server (debian sid) is connecting to a 802.11n router via a wired connection and both wireless devices are supposedly n (though the laptop reports 150Mbps connection and the Nexus 7 only 65Mbps.  I know there's overhead and interference and whatnot but this just doesn't make sense to me.
Is there some trick here or some way to speed up the transfer?  I'm even willing to switch protocols if it would help.  This problem has been floating around for a while but I haven't seen any constructive solution.
The fact that >4.0 forces MTP which still has flaky linux support makes this issue all the more pressing.

Have you tried different clients?


text:
Facebook chat icon status
In Facebook my friends see me with a light grey colored cellphone icon next to my name (in Facebook's messenger). Is this icon always on, even if my phone is off? Is it on if Facebook is running in the background, is it on if the app is actually running as an active app? Does it turn green if I am using the app actively (focused)?


text:
Wifi Direct and internet simultaneously?

Possible Duplicate:
How do I connect to a wifi ap and 3g network simultaneously?

Is it possible to use Wifi Direct and regular internet at the same time?
For example, could an app be written that connects to the router's Wifi AP as a Wifi Direct peer? Would this app need root?
If this is possible, please link to any code samples or existing apps or documentation that would be a helpful starting point. Thanks!

Code samples? Sorry, wrong site. Development questions are expressly off-topic here. ([FAQ]) However, asking for code samples at [so] will get this question closed as well.


text:
How to add 5 week shift schedule to calendar?
I need a way to set in my work schedule which repeats over 5 weeks in the calendar, It looks like this:
NNNN FFF
LLL FF MM
MM FF NNN
FFF LLLL
FF MMM FF

(Night, Free, Late, Morning)
Is there any way to do this? I really want it in my calendar and not as a separate app, I've seen "My Work Schedule" and "Work Calendar Lite" but they're not at all what I need.
Using a Samsung Galaxy S3, hope somebody's able to help me out, this really sucks, especially since my colleagues can easily do it on their Iphone ...

I think the best way to accomplish this is to find a service which allows you to sync a suitable calendar over webcal to your Google account. I know of one such service (WebCal.fi) but unfortunately it only supports Finnish shift rotations.

Thanks for the reply, thinking of just using the google calendar API to solve this problem, have some experience as a webdeveloper so it shouldn't be too hard

I'm the author of WebCal.fi. Currently it only supports Finnish workshifts, but I can add this calendar in other languages as well. Please contact me (you'll find my e-mail at webcal.fi) as I need to ask a few specific questions on this issue.

As far as I can tell, this is not possible within Android's calendar apps. It is possible, however, in Google Calendar's web app. If you are syncing with a Google account, you can go to Google Calendar and set up events to repeat every 5 weeks. You would have to set up each segment separately, but you could then set that segment to repeat every five weeks.
For example:

Go to Google Calendar
Add an event for one day of work (say, a single night shift)
Edit event...
Check box for "Repeat..."
In the popup that appears, set to repeat every 5 weeks, and select the days that week that have the same schedule (e.g., Mon, Tues, Wed).
Repeat for each segment in your schedule.

If you use the same Google account to sync your calendar to your phone, the schedule should appear shortly.

This is exactly what I did, had been meaning to post it here but completely forgot. This works great if anybody is still interested. The only problem is that it shows up all screwed up in my gf's agenda-app on her phone, though it displays fine on her google calendar a normal browser ... I'm gonna try and upgrade her phone to the latest android, hopefully that solves it ...

I'm building a mobile app called Six In A Row to be released in 2019 that should be able to do this when it's ready!
UPDATE: I decided to push the rotation extension feature to the next version. v1.0 might still be helpful though; my wife put a whole year of shifts in by tapping each shift/date that she is scheduled to work and it didn't take long at all. It's in beta now (you can get the free beta version by signing up on the website).
Otherwise in Google calendar you could create individual events for each shift in one rotation, and then set them all to be repeating every x weeks or whatever. I think this is a time intensive solution myself.

if you want just to enter your shifts and make them repeat, so you can see when you working or not, there are plenty of such apps on the android market, for example - Shift Work Schedule ( this one is free).


text:
Is there an equivalent to iOS "Reset Home Screen Layout" on the Nexus 7?
On iOS, "Reset Home Screen Layout" auto-arranges your application icons.  Is there an equivalent for this on my Nexus 7 Android tablet?  Right now my icons across several screens.

Are you asking about re-arranging the home screen icons, or resetting the home screen's items to default settings?

@Chahk I would like to know how to reset the home screen's layout to default settings.

Go to Settings->Apps, swipe to All, scroll and press Launcher, then select Clear data.
Your home screen is as good as new :)
UPDATE: As suggested by Chahk below, a good way to avoid cluttering your homescreen is by going to the Play Store then going to Menu -> Settings and un-checking the Auto-add widgets option.

Worth adding that you can disable auto-creating of shortcuts for newly installed apps by opening Play Store then going to Menu --> Settings and un-checking the Auto-add widgets option.

@rnh16 I would never have known to do this but it does work as a "factory reset" of the home screen.

Frank, glad I could help :) - @Chahk, added, thanks for the suggestion!

On newer devices/OS versions (i.e. Nexus 5X), try going into Google App instead of Launcher, select Storage, Manage Space, CLEAR LAUNCHER DATA.


text:
How to use USB Keyboard and USB Mouse In Android Tablet Simultaneously
My Android Tablet is having one Standard USB port and One Micro USB port I use Mini for 3G Dongle..... Tablet is not having Bluetooth. I want to know is it possible to connect mouse and keyboard from one standard USB port in Tablet ... Like we use headphone...
I am using this tablet http://bloggerplugnplay.blogspot.in/2012/12/bsnl-701c-penta-tablet-3gplay-store-not.html

Please clarify 'mini'.  Do you use standard or micro USB for 3G dongle?

I would suggest a cable hub.
You should be able to find one that takes only one USB port of device, and provides 2 (or 3) USB ports.
for example:
cable hub ,USB 2.0 3-port HUB with Micro 5P

If your tablet supports a USB hub, you might try connecting both devices to a hub and then connecting that hub to your tablet.

Please use standard english

How to check if it supports hub or not :/ its Penta Tab 701c you search its spec on net


text:
how to safely remove usb storage?
My android 2.3 tablet supports usb. It mounts all usb drives. However there is no mechanism for unmounting in the settings menu.
On direct unplugging usb devices, i get notification " usb mass storage device removed unexpectedly
Is there is an app for unmounting usb storage devices?

Can you pull down the notification bar and dismount from there?

It should normally be located within settings>storage>unmount USB storage. Otherwise look within whatever file explorer you are using on the tablet for USB storage, this should indicate that a usb stick etc is using the drive, and hence give you the option to remove/unmount.
There are apps available but these require root access to my knowledge.

In my unrooted stock Moto G running 4.3, I can access my USB pen drive by using an USB OTG cable. I use ES File explorer. I do not find any options to safely eject/remove the drive neither in ES File explorer app nor in settings->storage. Without safely ejecting, the drive is not detected again unless I restart my phone. Any ideas?

What about Android 5.0.2 ? I can't find any option to unmount USB Storage !

I was looking for an unmount option too, on Android 4.4.2. The answer was given in the comment from Matthew Read: pull down the notication bar (swipe from the top). Then you should see a button to unmount USB devices. At least it works like that on my LG G2.

I have an answer. Many ways to get here. Drag the windows out from the left in Es file explorer. You should see Favorite, Local, Library, Network and Tools in a colume. Tap on Local and you should see the usbdisk with an arrow beside it. Tap the arrow and you are taken to Storage Settings. Scroll to the bottom and tap on Unmount USB Storage. I'm using a S4 running CM12.

In kitkat 4.4.2 there is a way to safely remove usb otg device.
Settings>storage>usb>unmount
In storage menu, it shows internal storage,sd card and usb. You have to select the usb storage and inside, you will find an option to unmount.

You upgrade your moto g to Android 4.4 kit Kat. After that u don't want to restart your phone on ejection of USB drive. But still there is no safe ejection method as this specification (OTG) is not specified by manufacturer.  The advantage is that you don't need to restart your android device.

Where does the OP say anything about the Moto G?


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Multiplayer Games and Wifi / LAN
So at work, 2 of my colleagues also have android handsets:

I have an SGS3 (stock, for now)
Colleague #1 also has an SGS3 (stock)
Colleague #2 has an SGS2 (rooted and ROMd)

We have been trying to get some lunchtime android games going, but are not having any luck :(
We have been trying games with local wifi gaming such as Minecraft, Mini Motor Racing, Dungeon Defenders, Guerilla Bob etc. But none of them let us join or even see each others games.
We are all connected to the same wifi. I checked and we had some setting where wifi deices cant see each other, so we switched to an alternate network, still no joy. Also I would of thought there would be some ad-hoc mode available to us if wanting to play in a location without a central AP to connect to.
Using Fing or similar we can see each others devices on the network. Also have tried setting up a wifi direct with the other SGS3 (the SGS2 does not have this feature) but nothing.
Any ideas?

It will probably be the fact that games use a port that is disallowed on your work network.try using the tethered hotspot on your SGS3 as an alternative.