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I have a stock Android 4.2.2 on Galaxy Nexus, so I think this can be related to all Android phones. When switching from 2G to 3G and vice versa internet connection is switched off for a few seconds, even though when I browse in 3G I can connect to EDGE and GPRS too: why does this happen? | The radio frequency of a 2G radio operates in the range of 900 and 1800 MHz ( source )- varying from country to country. The radio frequency of a 3G radio operates in the range of 2100 Mhz ( source ). As far as Samsung Galaxy Nexus LTE L700 's specification is concerned, the 2G frequency is <code> CDMA 800 / 1900 </code> , 3G frequency is <code> CDMA2000 1xEV-DO </code> and LTE (4G) frequency is <code> LTE 1900 </code> . As far as Samsung Galaxy Nexus I9250 's specification is concerned, the 2G frequency is <code> GSM 850/900/1800/1900 </code> , 3G frequency is <code> HSDPA 900/1700/1900/2100 </code> and LTE (4G) frequency is <code> LTE 2300/2400 </code> . The above examples clearly means that the phones use different radio frequency for each type of network and hence when switching from one to another it goes into no network mode momentarily and hence the data connection stops. | Why is internet switched off when switching 2G/3G? | android |
I see the following two files in <code> the Download </code> directory: <code> Flash_Player.apk </code> and <code> securedownload.bin </code> . I am sure for 100% (well, for 99%) that I didn't download them intentionally. What are these files, what should I do with them (delete, I guess...). Is it possible to know, what program is responsible for downloading these files? | The <code> securedownload.bin </code> file is from your email app trying to download/save an attachment. The app creates this file (no matter what the actual name of your attachment is) whenever you try to view or save the attachment. The <code> FlashPlayer </code> installer may have been automatically downloaded by your Browser when you tried to view Flash content. In either case, these files should be perfectly safe to delete from your Downloads, since no apps are supposed to store critical files there. (if an app places critical files in the Downloads directory, the app doesn't deserve to be used!) | New files in Download directory | android |
When playing Ingress I find that both GPS and WiFi (each by themselves) provide an acceptable location accuracy. My question is what draws the most power? I'm interested in technical information about what goes on in my phone when I use either service to find my location: how much power does the WiFi radio take compared to the GPS? My thinking is that Enabling WiFi requires powering on a chip and using an antenna that both sends and receives data. Is that correct when I'm not actually connected to any network, i.e., just using the SSIDs along with cell tower IDs to determine my location? Enabling GPS requires powering on an otherwise dead chip that does expensive computations to compute the location. Is the constant GPS computations really expensive in terms of power drained? My phone is a LG Nexus 4, if that matters. | If you look at my stackexchange-url ("previous answer") to a similar question you can see that by Google's testing utilising WiFi will use more battery than using GPS. This seems broadly in line with the figures given in stackexchange-url ("an answer") mentioned in the comments. However as Izzy mentions these are ballpark figures and actual consumption is dependant upon what exactly the phone is doing. | What uses most power: GPS or WiFi? | android |
How can I minimize UI lag by ensuring that global UI elements (e.g. keyboard and notification drawer) don't compete for resources with every running application? | The UI lag is down to a number of things such: Too many widgets ( delete them, home launcher has to redraw screen upon closing the app drawer ) Home launcher - some redraw better than others ( switch to different launcher ) Animation turned up to the highest value ( i.e. turn it off ), in ICS+, it is as simple as found in Settings > Developer Options: Window Animation Scale Transition Animation Scale Animator duration Scale ( JellyBean ) Force GPU Rendering ( If that's ticked, it may not have any effect! ) depending on: the kernel version GPU driver in context of kernel space and the GPU driver itself, for example, Adreno*) CPU ( Important!! ) Are we talking about old ARMv6 chipset or the newer ones that has either dual-core or quad-core? What Android version? Older Android versions below Honeycomb, did suffer from some "janky" effects in terms of graphics redraw, more often than not, the chip-set was older and likewise for the kernel as well, which did not have the native Adreno graphics driver. What happened in ICS upwards, was, Android took advantage of the native Adreno graphics drivers built into the kernel which was dynamically linked with the user-space Adreno driver that comes as standard and was found in kernels 3.x+ upwards, and also in general, in newer handsets since ICS was launched. | How can I minimize UI lag? | android |
Im currently confused on what mods to be used now. My unit by the way is Samsung galaxy s3 I9300-International(rooted with Omega rom 42.3 and Kernel SiyahKernel v1.9.1). The reason why I rooted my phone is to be able to move apps to sd card. My choices are here: DirectoryBind ExtSd2InternalSd I dont know which is the right one to use in terms of compatibility even on latest os 4.2. Because Im too scared of bricking my phone. The First choice was published 2011 while the other one was just last year. So I dont know which is must stable for my phone. Hope for your kind suggestion fellow developers. Thankyou very much. | If I am allowed to suggest out of the choices that you had provided, I will suggest Link2SD . With Link2SD you can try moving/linking a non-critical application to the SD card and check how well it works. Once moved or linked, try to reboot the phone (no other way than rebooting to avoid disappointments) and see whether that moved/linked non-critical app works fine. By adopting this approach, you would not bring any serious trouble to your phone. Since your phone is rooted and has a custom kernel, I assume you are proficient with this stuff. If not, you can always refer to this step by step guide . Update and additional info There are two means of freeing the internal memory in Android. Moving apps to external storage: A feature of opting to install apps on external card was introduced in Froyo (2.2–2.2.3, API Level 8). This also allowed moving existing apps to external storage. Few points to take a note here are: It only takes a setting to be set to move future installations of apps. It can be set through stackexchange-url ("ADB commands"). There are many apps available that enable users to move any existing apps to SD card, provided those apps are deliberately not marked as non-movable by the developer. System apps also cannot be moved to SD card. In either case, the internal memory will not be completely unused by the application. It will have few bytes consumed, though it is considered insignificant in par with the case of not moving/installing the app to external storage at all. Linking apps to external storage: Linking is totally different from moving. This process moves the files of the application to the external card and creates a symbolic link in its place in the internal memory. Since the link is a reference to these files, Android doesn't complain about it. This given in detail in Link2SD's site which is reproduced below: Q. What is the difference between “Move To SD Card (Native to Android)" and “Create (Symbolic) Link” in Link2SD? Which method conserves the greatest amount of internal memory, what are the advantages of "linking" over "moving" and vice versa? Native apps2sd Starting with Android 2.2 (Froyo) Google introduced native apps2SD. This method moves apk file on Android 2.2 apk + lib files on Android 2.3+ into a secure folder on your SD card in the main FAT partition. It is the easiest method because it doesn't require you to partition your sdcard and root privilige. It has some disadvantages though. First disadvantage is that application files are just stored on the sdcard's main FAT partition. When you enable USB mass storage to share files with your computer (or otherwise unmounts or removes the external storage), any application installed on the external storage and currently running is killed. The system effectively becomes unaware of the application until mass storage is disabled and the external storage is remounted on the device. Besides killing the application and making it unavailable to the user, this can break some types of applications in a more serious way. So second disadvantage is that not all apps can be moved with native apps2sd method because of above reason. In order for the application to consistently behave as expected, developer should not allow the application to be installed on the external storage if it uses any of the following features, due to the cited consequences when the external storage is unmounted: Widgets, Services, Alarm Services, Live Wallpapers, Live Folders, Account Managers, Sync Adapters, Broadcast Receivers listening for "boot completed". Force move (requires root); You can force the apps move to SD card with native apps2SD even the application does not support moving as described above. Link2SD and some other apps can force move apps if you have root priviliges. But, note that this can break some applications, as described above. Link2SD Link2SD moves apk + dex + lib files of the application to the second partition and creates symbolic links in the original locations on internal storage. First advantage is that it can free up more space from the internal storage compared to native apps2sd method because it moves the dex file as well. The second advantage of Link2Sd over native apps2sd is that by creating symlinks you get Android assume these apps are installed into the internal memory, though in fact all the files are located on the SD. Therefore you can link all applicatios to SD card; widgets, services, live wallpapers etc., all of them will work without any problem from SD card. The third advantage is that, even when you mount the SD card to your PC your linked apps are all still live and working! Because Android unmounts the first FAT partition to share files with your computer but the second partition remains mounted. Link2SD allows you to run all of your "SD apps" even when mounted to your computer as a disk drive. And, disadvantage is that, obviously, it requires root privilige and a second partition on your SD card. It's not working "out-of-the-box" as native apps2sd, you need to root your device and create a second partition on your SD card yourself. | move app to sd card | android |
Is there a way to remove an app from only one device when using the same account over two devices? I've just got a tablet - which is currently syncing settings and downloading all the apps that I have obtained from the market on my phone. I won't need all these apps and would like to remove some from just the tablet (but leave them available for restore on the phone etc). Is this possible? Does the phone have an independent "installed app" list to the tablet? Thanks. | Yes, they have separate lists - you can uninstall from the tablet or phone without affecting the other device. | Uninstalling app from specific device only | android |
Yesterday, my phone started vibrating once every 15 seconds or so during phone calls. I'm running cyanogenmd 7 on HTC thunderbolt. I looked in settings and there is only option to vibrate every 45 seconds during outgoing calls and it is off. How can I get back the old behavior? | i had a similar problem, for me I had to go into the "profile" i was using "default, silent, work, ect.", and change the phone setting for vibrate to off. | Why is my phone vibrating incessantly during calls? | android |
I have looked at similar questions but could find an answer. Device: Samsung google nexus s i9020 OS: Android 4.1.2 The phone mounts when the OS has loaded and when there is an option to enable usb storage. I am trying to <code> root </code> my phone and boot loader is locked. I need to connect to my computer (Linux Mint) to run a program to unlock the boot loader. for some reason, the phone does not get mounted automatically anymore. log from a previous successful mount on OS load <code> Apr 13 20:20:25 kernel: [ 93.795791] usb 1-1.1: >new high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci_hcd Apr 13 20:20:25 kernel: [ 93.889485] usb 1-1.1: >New USB device found, idVendor=18d1, idProduct=4e21 Apr 13 20:20:25 kernel: [ 93.889489] usb 1-1.1: >New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=4 Apr 13 20:20:25 kernel: [ 93.889493] usb 1-1.1: >Product: Nexus S Apr 13 20:20:25 kernel: [ 93.889496] usb 1-1.1: >Manufacturer: samsung Apr 13 20:20:25 kernel: [ 93.889498] usb 1-1.1: >SerialNumber: 3630F20CB6EF00EC Apr 13 20:20:25 kernel: [ 93.951562] Initializing USB Mass Storage driver... Apr 13 20:20:25 kernel: [ 93.951755] scsi6 : usb-storage 1-1.1:1.0 Apr 13 20:20:25 kernel: [ 93.951876] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage Apr 13 20:20:25 kernel: [ 93.951879] USB Mass Storage support registered. Apr 13 20:20:25 kernel: [ 93.955427] usbcore: registered new interface driver uas Apr 13 20:20:26 kernel: [ 94.951743] scsi 6:0:0:0: >Direct-Access Google File-CD Gadget 0000 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 Apr 13 20:20:26 kernel: [ 94.953211] sd 6:0:0:0: >Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0 Apr 13 20:20:26 kernel: [ 94.955200] sd 6:0:0:0: >[sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk </code> log from an unsuccessful usb mount during <code> fastboot </code> mode <code> Apr 13 22:33:07 kernel: [ 8051.407340] usb 1-1.1: >new high-speed USB device number 9 using ehci_hcd Apr 13 22:33:08 kernel: [ 8051.500735] usb 1-1.1: >New USB device found, idVendor=18d1, idProduct=4e20 Apr 13 22:33:08 kernel: [ 8051.500743] usb 1-1.1: >New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 Apr 13 22:33:08 kernel: [ 8051.500748] usb 1-1.1: >Product: Android 1.0 Apr 13 22:33:08 kernel: [ 8051.500752] usb 1-1.1: >Manufacturer: Google, Inc Apr 13 22:33:08 kernel: [ 8051.500756] usb 1-1.1: >SerialNumber: 3630F20CB6EF00EC Apr 13 22:33:08 mtp-probe: checking bus 1, device 9: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.1" Apr 13 22:33:08 mtp-probe: bus: 1, device: 9 was not an MTP device </code> <code> fastboot </code> unlock software waiting for the phone <code> ~/android/nexussrootICS$ ./fastboot-linux oem unlock < waiting for device > </code> Can someone suggest how could I mount (manual/automatic)? Thanks | To my knowledge, in fastboot mode you cannot mount the device to your PC. MTP and fastboot are two different things. According to the CyanogenMod Wiki on Fastboot , the solution might be simple: If you see at any point when executing fastboot command, the PC is not configured to use fastboot properly. Most typically, this is because you are not running fastboot with elevated privileges. Which means: you must run <code> fastboot </code> as root user, e.g. <code> sudo fastboot devices </code> or <code> sudo fastboot-linux oem unlock </code> . If that does not solve your issue, it might help to take a look at the steps necessary to use the <code> adb </code> command line utility: For <code> adb </code> to detect your device, you need to have setup a corresponding entry in your <code> /etc/udev/rules.d </code> . First run <code> lsusb </code> to check how the device identifies itself to the system. These data you can also take from your above quoted log: <code> idVendor=18d1, idProduct=4e20 </code> is the information we need. Now, the corresponding entry in <code> /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules </code> should look like: <code> SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="18d1", ATTRS{idProduct}=="4e20", MODE="0666" GROUP="androiddev", SYMLINK+="android%n" </code> Save the file, and reload the <code> udev </code> service ( <code> service udev reload </code> ). Re-connect your device. Now <code> adb </code> (or, in your case, <code> fastboot </code> ) should be able to find it. You can check that using the command <code> adb devices </code> (or <code> fastboot devices </code> ), which now should list your Nexus S . | mounting google nexus s on linux at fastboot mode screen | android |
On a Samsung note 10.1 with 32G when I go to settings I can see 25GB available storage. Besides that, when I am trying to copy files from my ubuntu box to the tablet (connected through the USB) I am getting an insufficient storage message. Checking the properties of the mounted volume I only see 200MB free on it. How can I fix it? | with 32 GB when I go to settings I can see 25 GB available storage Though the device is declared to have 32GB, part of that is reserved for the firmware. The entire 32GB are partitioned: <code> /system </code> for the device-firmware <code> /recovery </code> for the recovery (see: recovery-mode ) <code> /boot </code> for the boot image <code> /cache </code> for application cache <code> /data </code> for apps and their data (see: internal-storage ) The 25 GB you see are those from the internal-storage aka <code> /data </code> . This answer only covers the first part of your question. For the second part, we need some more details. | Although I have enough the available storage does not match it | android |
Currently, I can only find devices (phone, tablets or sticks) that are equipped with a maximum of 2GB RAM. While this might be sufficient for current applications, I do wonder why there are no devices offering more RAM. I think that having more RAM would not have a significant impact on prices, while being beneficial to multitasking several apps. So why are there no devices with more RAM? Limitations by chipsets? Just the cost competition? Making people buy new devices with 4GB next year and with 6 in the year after? My intiuition behind this question: From CPU-power and storage speeds the android devices are more powerful than my ULV-notebook which suffices for all my work and stuff. I do see potential in replacing my "home server" with a cheap android device. But I do not understand why they have so little RAM, which could be useful in this context. PS: I am aware that it is possible to create swap space on the disk and increase swappiness, but the access times are far worse than RAM speed. | There are several factors, which I'll address (pun intended) in no particular order. RAM is expensive Sure, memory chips may be cheap, but that's not the only (or even the main) cost. Alongside the RAM itself you need extra buses, power lines, bigger memory controllers, heatsinks, &c. The RAM also takes physical space on-chip. For oomph-per-dollar, at the moment, you're better off increasing cache sizes rather than memory sizes. Also, don't forget how power-hungry RAM is. Doubling the RAM capacity means doubling its power budget, which means either your battery life gets even worse , or you need bigger batteries. Now, you could say that the extra RAM could be powered down until it's needed, but (a) don't forget that Android currently tries to keep all the RAM full to save CPU cycles, so the software changes to support that would be very expensive, and (b) that's just giving app developers another way to screw up and run your battery down. So, it's not as cheap as all that, and you don't want to add more RAM until you can really use it, which you can't, because of 32-bit processors Remember how desktops and servers only started having lots of RAM when 64-bit processors became popular? That's because 32-bit processors can only have 4 GB of address space . That has to include all the RAM you want to access, plus any memory-mapped buffers for accessing other hardware and storage. By the time you count everything, it effectively limits you to accessing about 3GB of RAM. With LPAE (the ARM equivalent of Intel's PAE ) you can make that a per-process limit rather than a whole-system limit. That is, you could have 8 GB of RAM in your device, and each process could use up to 3GB of it. But that's not as useful for a phone as it is for a server, because of Single-tasking Unlike iOS, Android lets apps run background services, but realistically, they're not going to be doing memory-intensive operations. You don't need 2 GB of RAM to sync your email and contacts, and for more intensive background operations, the trend has been to put them in "the cloud", letting big servers handle the heavy lifting and just send the results to your screen. If you think of a smartphone and tablet as just a thin client connected to Internet services, there's no way you'd even need 1 GB of RAM. RAM demands have only grown past that because of increasing screen resolutions and the need to supply large textures to games. You mentioned potential for multitasking, but it's a tiny minority of users would would ever be swapping between two memory-hungry apps on a tablet or phone. Maybe a paint program and a 3D modelling app? This may be something that changes if manufacturers start bringing Android to desktops or more powerful portables, but right now RAM is not the only thing stopping people using their devices that way. Even if you are multitasking, you have Fast non-volatile memory Android devices have an extra advantage that means they don't need as much RAM as desktops or servers: fast non-volatile storage. You mentioned swapping to disk in your question, so don't forget that Windows has been doing this with ReadyBoost , which uses a flash drive as virtual memory (the Windows equivalent of swap space). Using flash memory as swap is actually pretty fast, especially when it's internal memory (so the system integrator can tune everything for its latency and bandwidth) rather than an arbitrary SD card. Android already lets apps pack up their GUI state into special storage before they go away. This lets background processes take up less memory, and provides a path for Android to move that state to non-volatile memory. I'd expect to see this mechanism used a lot more cleverly in software to make the most of the RAM you already have, before manufacturers start pushing the 32-bit limit. To summarise: there's no reason Android devices can't have more memory, but adding more isn't just a question of going to PC World and buying a stick of DDR . At the same time, most users won't see any benefit from the extra memory; the way Android devices are used and the way Android apps are written would have to change before they would. If you want to replace your home server with a cheap, power-efficient ARM computer, there's no need to look to Android for that. You can get small ARM servers that run GNU/Linux, and even some mainstream NASes are easy to install a GNU/Linux distro on. You might even be able to repurpose an Android device for this (for example, Ubuntu 13.04 is supposed to run on a Nexus 7). | Why are android devices equipped with only (relatively) little RAM? | android |
I am using on my Android Gtalk where i can only do chat text send and receive. But how can i do all the features of WhatsAPP from Gtalk? Features like: file transfer (image pictures, music, video clips) Audio replay from the chat by history Video reply from the chat by history Is there any way to make Gtalk by default to do file transfer features?? So that pictures in mobile can be sent, musics in mobile can be sent etc can be sent from mobile directly ?? | The rumored Google Babel may be the solution you are looking for. Hopefully it will be announced/released before or at Google I/O. | Android GTalk, Chromium Gtalk, Gmail Gtalk - how can i send files such as image, music, video clips like whatsApp? | android |
A couple of weeks ago, my rooted Nexus 4 was updated from 4.2 to 4.2.1. Now it still seems to be unlocked (open lock symbol while booting), but I've lost my Superuser privileges. Is there any way I can get the SU privileges back without wiping my phone? If not, what's the best way to backup all or most of the data before going through the SU process again? Finally, how can I prevent this from happening again with the next update? Thanks for your help! | Just re-root. Your bootloader is still unlocked, so nothing is preventing you from doing so. The Nexus Root Toolkit should do the heavy lifting for you if you want (just press "Root"). Manual steps would be: Download a custom recovery, like ClockworkMod , and save it to your computer Download the Superuser/su package for ARM and copy it to your phone Reboot into your bootloader, either by holding Volume Down while turning on your device or by issuing <code> adb reboot bootloader </code> from a PC (plugged in via USB with debugging enabled on the phone) Use the <code> fastboot </code> utility to install the recovery image from your PC via: <code> fastboot flash recovery /path/to/recovery.img </code> Reboot into recovery (boot into your bootloader, then press either of the volume buttons to cycle to "Recovery" and press power). Install the the Superuser zip file from your recovery menu Reboot. You now have root. In general, if you don't want to lose root, don't install OTA updates. You can try apps like OTA Rootkeeper or Superuser's in-built functionality, but there's no guarantee that it will work since it depends on exactly how the OTA is applied. Some devices (the Kindle Fire is one example) will actually wipe the entire <code> /system </code> partition when performing an update, making OTA Rootkeeper apps useless. The only guaranteed method of updating and keeping root would be to wait for a repackaged (rooted) version of the OTA to appear on somewhere like XDA and then flash that from your recovery, or repackage it yourself. | Nexus 4: Lost superuser rights after an update to 4.2.1 - how can I get them back? | android |
I am trying to connect a Samsung Note II ( OS: Android 4.0, Ice cream Sandwich) through Wi-Fi to a DHCP Server. The DHCP server(192.168.3.29) is running on a Virtual Machine with OS as Ubuntu 12.10 64 bit. A D-link Wi-Fi access point is connected to this DHCP server. The DHCP server sends the IP(192.168.3.100) to the Samsung Note II but the device fails to assign the IP address. The samsung device never had any problem connecting with other DHCP servers. Please let me know if you need any other details. I've checked it with Wireshark, which shows that the DHCP server accepts the request from the device: Wireshark screenshot -- click it to see it in full resolution Question was closed as off-topic on SO, and I was redirected here -- see stackexchange-url ("stackexchange-url | I have solved this problem. It was because of huge network traffic on the DHCP server, due to which the ACK was not able to reach through Wi-Fi to the Samsung Galaxy Android. | Samsung Note 2 does not assign received IP | android |
When SIM is locked with PIN1 or PIN2 and I boot my Android phone, SIM unlock screen appears which contains num key pad and "Emergency Call" button. I have seen this in all Android phones including non-dual SIM phones and those without native VoIP stack (I know VoIP isn't meant for emergency calling, but it can be option if user is in Wi-Fi & VoIP is configured). What's the purpose of this "Emergency Call" button when you can't really call? | It is required for phones (at least in Europe and US) to allow emergency calls without requiring the user to unlock the phone or the SIM card. You can always make an emergency call when you're in a cell coverage area and the phone has power. It's a safety feature, which guarantees you can use any phone in an emergency to get assistance, regardless of the state the phone is in. Take this scenario: you're in a car crash and your own phone breaks. An unconscious friend's cell phone is working, but it has a pattern/PIN/password lock on it, or it lost power but boots to the SIM PIN screen. The feature guarantees that you can make the call without knowledge of the correct pattern/PIN/password. The numbers you can call with this feature are restricted to the most common or regional emergency numbers, and are translated by the carrier to the local emergency numbers if you're roaming. The exception to this are WiFi-only tablets, which can't make calls at all. Edit: If the device's SIM is locked, it detects the networks available and identifies it's own network, but doesn't register the device to the network. In the case of emergency calls, the phone doesn't need to be registered to the network, all calls to emergency numbers are allowed, regardless of the state of the SIM or carrier subscription. Even with no SIM at all, the networks are detected and the carrier with the strongest signal is used. | What's the purpose of "Emergency Call" button on SIM unlock screen? | android |
How can I know what's the Bluetooth version of my Android device? | I have a samsung Galaxy S2 here is a method to get info on your bluetooth version Turn on bluetooth by going to the home screen, clicking menu-> settings bluetooth. Pull that to enabled. Make sure it is on. On the home screen, click menu -> settings -> applications -> 'running' tab. An item appears called: "bluetooth share". A screen pops up with information about the program, but it is sparse. | Discover version of Bluetooth | android |
I want to upgrade my Operating system (Nexus S I9250) which currently is Android 4.1 . My cell is not rooted and I have never tampered with the android system shipped, always upgraded it though. Right now, it says "Waiting for Download" but the progress bar never goes ahead. | Restarting your phone should resolve the issue. | Can't update Nexus S. Stuck at "waiting for download" | android |
Tapping the viewfinder or the blue shutter button of the Nexus 4 Android 4.2 camera app brings up the rotating circular control shown in the screenshot. What is it used for? How does it work? | This is a new feature as of Android 4.2. It serves two purposes: To focus your camera on what you click on Long press it and you get a radial menu of different camera settings to change (flash on/off, etc). This is the exact same behavior as if you clicked the icon in the top right corner of your screenshot. | How does the Nexus 4 rotating circular camera control work? | android |
Both are the chatting tools of Google. I use Talk since I use Gmail to chat with my friend and when I see Google+ Messenger, I just thought it is Talk but the two are NOT the same at all - i.e. chatting with one person on Talk and he/she will NOT receive it Google+ Messenger. This is so confusing. What is the differences then? Why there are two chat tools like this? Update The funny thing is that Google+ Messenger is used for chatting with Google+ users from Android phone. But when I log in my Google+ page, I can ONLY talk with Talk friends !?!? I want to continue my last chat with a friend on Google+ from my PC, but now I cannot. So funny! | Google Talk This will syncs to your Gmail account. this offers free instant messaging to all your Google contacts that you have invited to “talk” with. You can use the services within the Gmail web page, or download Google Talk and install it on your computer or smart phone. Google+ Messenger Originally called “Huddle”, which is a sub service to Google+. The big difference with Google+ Messenger is that this is the instant messaging service that is synced to your Google+ account, not your Gmail account. People who are added to your “circles” are the ones that are able to be messaged with. One major difference with Google+ Messenger is that it allows people to have group chats. Source | What is the differrences between Talk and Google+ Messenger? | android |
My phone has a pattern lock and I want friends to be able to unlock it with the pattern, however, I do not want them to have access to my gmail. Is there a way that I can force gmail to ask for the password every time I/someone try to open it? I've read that the password tokens are an intrinsic part of the Android OS, is there any way I could do such a thing without losing the notifications of new e-mail? Thanks! | You could use an app locker like Smart App Protector . This will <code> protect your installed applications using a password or pattern </code> . | Double Security for Gmail | android |
I've just bought a 16gb Sandisk microSD and I moved some apps to that by using the functionality available under <code> Settings > Applications > Manage Applications </code> . I went through the list and I moved some apps to the microSD when the button was available. I also moved the Music folder to the new microSD. Then I left my phone for a while and when I came back it was asking me for the PIN code as it had restarted. Then the Android configuration wizard popped up, like when you first boot the device (so asking me to choose the language and set other configuration things). After this I found out that my previous data was gone including contacts, text messages, settings, etc. Similar to when you do a hard reset. Some things remained like pictures and music files. Unfortunately there's no sync with Google or similar. I should have done that or at least made a backup before moving things to the new storage. I believe my data is still there somehow. I'd like to know if my things are completely gone or maybe they are just not loaded for some weird reason. Can you help me? Phone: Samsung Galaxy S Plus (GT-I9001) / Android version: 2.3.5 EDIT : After completely reformatting the microSD as also suggested by official SanDisk tecnical support for general problems, I didn't experienced another hard reset so far after moving files. | As the factory-reset already correctly suggests, the description makes quite clear that such happened. A factory-reset "deletes" everything from your internal-storage -- that is, all the apps you've installed, all data, caches, etc. So nothing is left but what you've moved to SDCard/external storage. While there are possibilities to even recover deleted data (usually via a nandroid backup or any other 1:1 copy of the entire file system and doing file carving ), this is nothing easy and you must start the copy as soon as possible, before you do any other initialization (which you already did). With every data change, chances to recover something get smaller. We have some questions/answers behind the data-recovery tag explaining this in more detail, see e.g. stackexchange-url ("How can I recover a deleted file on Android?") stackexchange-url ("Recover deleted content from userdata partition?") Btw: With all other data on internal-storage , also the logs are gone for good -- which is a pity, as it would be very interesting to know what triggered an automatic factory-reset. The only thing coming to my mind is a remote-wipe , which might have been triggered either via your company (if you're accessing their exchange server via active-sync , and thus accepted the corresponding device-administrator ) -- or the previous owner (if any) having set up some anti-theft app, and now pulled the trigger on you... | Personal data (contacts, sms, phone logs, settings, etc) gone after moving apps to a new microSD | android |
I would like to know whether there is a way to tell Android to install applications on the micro SD card by default instead of having to download applications to internal memory first and then having to move them to the SD card manually. Thanks | This article at HowtoGeek describes a possible way utilizing the adb : enable USB debugging connect your device to your computer execute the command <code> adb shell pm setInstallLocation 2 </code> (or, new syntax, <code> adb shell pm set-install-location 2 </code> ) disconnect, done. This command will set the devices default installation target to your SDCard. That doesn't necessarily mean everything gets installed there: only apps supporting this will go there, and devs can "overrule" this in their apps manifest if they think it's needed. From the linked API reference: Changes the default install location. Location values: <code> 0 </code> : Auto—Let system decide the best location. <code> 1 </code> : Internal—install on internal device storage. <code> 2 </code> : External—install on external media. Note: This is only intended for debugging; using this can cause applications to break and other undesireable behavior. For more details on ADB, and how you can e.g. get a minimal version of it to your computer (without the overkill of installing the entire SDK), you can take a look at the adb stackexchange-url ("tag-wiki"). Update: To avoid confusion with stackexchange-url ("t0mm13b's answer"), some clearance on the installation process: you find some app on google-play-store and decide to install it after you've clicked "install" and agreed on terms/permissions, the apk is downloaded to <code> /data/local </code> , i.e. to your internal-storage . You can't change that. when the download is completed, the <code> .apk </code> will be installed automatically. Where to, depends on multiple things: if the dev did not specify the <code> android:installLocation </code> property in his apps <code> Manifest </code> , the app will be installed to internal story. Full stop, no other choice (see: API reference). if this <code> android:installLocation </code> is set to <code> preferExternal </code> , and external storage is available, it will go there. if it's set to <code> auto </code> , it again depends: does the app contain widgets, services, wants to start at boot, and several other things, it goes to internal storage. Full stop, no other choice. it goes where the devices "default install location" points to | Installing to SDCard by default | android |
I would like to install an android 4.x ROM on my Optimus Net (P690) Android 2.3.4. When I go to the CyanogenMod downloads page at http://get.cm I see various phones but not mine. However this youtube video shows that such an installation is possible. Alas this page does not show where to get the ROM image from. Could anyone suggest where to get it from? | The YouTube video refers to an XDA page as shown below: That XDA page gives further details about the CM9 ROM, GApps and instructions. Your LG P690's hardware seems to be a close match to my LG P500. So, if you are not satisfied with the ROM mentioned, you can give a shot with LGP500's ROM - the chances of getting it working in your P690 is good. Please search this site for details on knowing from where to download ROM for P500. | How to install cyanogenmod on LG P690 optimus net: how to know which ROM? | android |
At my work we all have Android devices which are used to dispatch jobs to us. It uses a web-app accessible through any web browser. When a new job arrives we are notified with an audible alert. However, because of the way Android handles the memory, it often "sleeps" (don't know the proper terminology) the web browser so if we get a new job through, we aren't notified unless we manually re-open the web browser to "wake" it. Is there any workarounds for this issue? Cheers | Presumably, the device is using wifi to access the internet - it might be worth a shot to try this: Settings > Wifi Hit on Menu to bring up Advanced Tap on that menu option Keep Wifi on during sleep , check that, make sure its set to Never In that way when the device goes to sleep, wifi is still active and running and the web app should still work and When a new job arrives we are notified with an audible alert Edit The above answer is not the correct answer, rather from the comments below, this is definitely the one, in which I quote,. Maybe, the approach to managing the jobs is done the wrong way , especially in context of Android - a custom app that has a service using a partial wake-lock to "ping" checking on jobs, send an event to the app and the app wakes up. IMHO, a browser is not the right tool for the requirements in your case. In short, there is nothing that can be done to keep the web-browser "alive" while the device is sleeping, as Android, behind the scenes, when the kernel is not in sleep state, is tracking what apps are running, and depending on power and memory constraints, especially in the case of a web-browser page, (if it has a lot of styles, the more elaborate the page, the more resources hogged up as a result, especially if it has a lot of Javascript behind the page) this could be the job for the kernel to shoot it down and eject it from memory hence not reliable route to take. TL;DR: A proper application instead of just web-browser will resolve the OP's problem. Off-topic: There was a piece covered by the technology section under the BBC news in respect to mobile web browsing and how it can affect the battery due to the way web pages are designed, rather, they were designed incorrectly for the mobile platform, too much styles, too much scripting, not to mention Flash as well, they all had adverse affect on how Android displays/renders the page which in turn meant a lot of CPU cycles consumed to do just that. | Bypass memory manager; keep app alive | android |
After playing with partitioning using FDISK (from busybox) i finished and now i want to format it back to whatever is usable under Android. Using same FDISK via Android console i deleted all partitions, made a clean DOS partition table, made a new partition and changed its type to b (Win95 FAT32). I got no microSD adapter to read the card from my linux PC and format it there. What should i do to format it into a usable condition? | Summing up from the comments: With BusyBox, Android provides tools for formatting from the command line. In your case, this would be <code> /system/sbin/mkfs.vfat </code> . This is reported to sometimes throw an error like: <code> mkfs.vfat: lseek: Value too large for defined data type </code> According to this XDA thread , this is the fault of Busybox. Using a different version (as reported in post #12 of that thread) should solve the issue -- and did it in your case, luckily. | Format SD card after playing with fdisk (No card reader) | android |
Previously my friend installed cyanogenmod 10 OS in my LG P-500 phone. It was working so superb. I had to do factory reset to the phone for deleting some files, after which I am unable to open any of the applications, not even browser and play store. I installed Dolphin browser , which is also getting crashed in 1 min itself. Now I decided to re-install the OS. All zip files required for installation are with me, but I don't know how to install Cyanogenmod OS . | Since you already had CM10 installed, you should be having the ZIP file with you. If you do not have it, you can download it from the previous source and place it in your sd card. If you do not have and do not know the source from where you already downloaded, you can try the one from where I had downloaded ( Courtesy ). The reason I am trying to stick to your previous download is that these ZIP files are unofficial CM builds and are compiled from same source by many developers, each adding their own bells and whistles and most importantly bug fixes. Hence you already know what is working and what is not with your previous ROM which will avoid you any nasty last minute surprises. As far as the ROM that I am using, apart from what is mentioned in the blog , Google location service is not working. Which means that News and Weather app, Google maps etc will not get your location without GPS. After deciding which ROM ZIP file to use, place the ZIP file in sd card and switch off the phone. Please backup whatever you want as the following steps is going to erase all except the SD card contents. Reboot your phone into recovery mode. To do this, press and hold Home button, Volume down button and while holding both down, power on the device. Do not release the home and volume down button until you see the CyanogenMod recovery console. Then simply follow the steps as said in the blog . | Factory reset Cynogenmod 10 OS in LG P-500 makes applications crash | android |
Does " Backup all user apps " also include app data too and does " Backup all system data " include backup of messages and contacts ? | TiBu's FAQ says: Click “Backup all user apps” (if you want just your apps) or “Backup all user apps + system data” if you want everything backed up. This doesn’t seem to always backup SMS and contact history. Unfortunately it doesn't explain all options in detail -- but from the above quote one can conclude: "Backup all system data" normally includes contacts, SMS, etc (but might miss some history -- not clear if the latter a) refers to an old version, as I never experienced that, or b) is device-specific) "Backup all user apps" must include the data, otherwise the term if you want everything backed up wouldn't make sense. To make sure, just visit the above mentioned FAQ for a closer check, which might answer other questions (you didn't know you've had ;) on the way. | Titanium Backup batch options | android |
Is there a way to share the notes of Google Keep between different persons? For example, could I link the notes to the todos of Thunderbird Lightning, or can I share the notes between two different Google Accounts? | Currently there is no way to share notes on Keep in the same way that you can share a document. However, if your goal is to share notes between a fixed amount of persons (e.g. family members,) you can always create a new Google account, add it to all Android phones that you need to share on, and enable sync of Keep only on that account. | Can I share Google Keep notes between people? | android |
My stock Nexus 4 (4.2.2) is giving me multiple calendar notifications every day. It gives me one notification which is a reminder for a specific upcoming event, and it gives me a second notification which is sort of a general roll-up of upcoming events. Here's an example of the two notifications: Screenshot (click image to enlarge) I rely heavily on the reminder notifications, but I find the rollup to be useless for me. I've verified that both are coming from the Calendars app by long-pressing on the notifications and clicking on App Info. How do I disable the second "roll-up" calendar notification? | I can confirm that this is normal behaviour for the default (blue) Google Calendar on the Nexus 4 - just the 1 app. Having tried a few tests of my own... The multiple "roll-up" events appear to be events for which you have already received a notification, but have not explicitly acknowledged or "dismissed" it - in which case the notification remains in the notification area and forms this group when the next notification occurs. In the screenshot above, a notification has just occurred for "Test3", while notifications have already occurred for "Test1" and "Test2", but I did not acknowledge/dismiss them. I could, for instance, tap on the "roll-up" and dismiss "Test2" - it will then be removed from the notification area. The only way to stop this roll-up of events is to either: Dismiss the notification as it occurs. Don't set a notification for these events. | How to disable duplicate calendar notifications? | android |
On a rooted Nexus 4 using stock 4.2.2, if I enable Wifi tether then connect my laptop (a Lenovo T520 using Centrino Advanced-N 6205 hardware with driver v15.3.1.2) I get a BSOD within seconds. I am using the stock tether app. I read elsewhere that I am not the only one with this problem, but Intel refuses to acknowledge it. I even waited for an updated Wifi driver to come out, which I installed today, but the problem persists. According a thread on XDA-Dev, the workaround is to set the Local IP to 192.168.1.100 instead of 192.168.1.1 and the DHCP starting IP to 192.168.1.101 instead of 192.168.1.10. But since I am using the stock tethering app these settings are not available. Is there a tweak app that would allow me to do this? Or are there other workarounds to this issue? TIA | This is a documented bug related to tethering between INTEL wireless and QUALCOMM S4 based mobile phones, leading to disconnection or BSOD. It has been documented here and discussed here . | WiFi Tether Causes a BSOD in Laptop Using Intel WiFi Hardware | android |
If I would take a backup via TRWP, does it include all my apps, app data, messages, contacts or it would just take backup of the ROM only, so I could get a fresh ROM with factory restored when I restore it ? | To my knowledge, TWRP does a nandroid backup . As you can read in the tag wikis of the mentioned tags (stackexchange-url ("nandroid"), stackexchange-url ("backup")), a Nandroid backup takes images of your partitions. It's not a backup on the file level, but on partition level. So it includes everything stored on those partitions. Doing a full Nandroid backup of your system thus includes the entire system, one file per partition. There are only very few things not contained, such as the radio-firmware . So to put it as a short direct answer to your question: Yes, a full Nandroid backup would include all your apps, app data, messages, contacts . Though it might be complicated to extract them separately ( Nandroid can't do that, it's always an "all-or-nothing". But e.g. Titanium Backup can read data from Nandroid backups. Just in case you'll need that :) | What does TRWP backup include? | android |
I'm using MIUI rom and in the Philippines, the carrier name is pretty long. "Globe Telecom-P" and it takes up a lot of status bar space. Gah. Is there a way to hide this? | Phono is able to replace the carrier's name with a logo: Phono (source: Google Play ; click image to enlarge) Take a look at above screenshot. See the T logo in the upper left, on the notification bar? That's placed by Phono . It additionally offers a bunch of widgets to show you network strength and other things, plus some shortcuts (as shown in the screenshot). I used Phono successfully on HTC stock ROMs as well as with CyanogenMod. Though your seem to have issues with your current Beta-ROM, those might hopefully be fixed with an update, so Phono will work on that, too -- otherwise it might still help you in case you decide to switch ROMs :) | How to hide the carrier name in status bar? | android |
Is there an app (or some other way) that could listen to other apps, and their network? I have this one app, and I couldn't figure out where it gets its images. I tried to google an app to listen to other apps connections, but I didn't find any. I'm looking for similar functionality as Google Chromes network tab from developer menu. I have rooted Nexus 4 with 4.2.2. | OS Monitor lists network connections by app: OS Monitor and Connection Tracker listing connections (source: Google Play; click image to enlarge) As you can see, OS Monitor lists up all connections, and lists the corresponding app "owning" this connection along. This should enable you to see all servers your suspicious app connects to. There are other apps available with the same feature as well, as e.g. Connection Tracker shown in the second screenshot. If you really need the full URL, the above won't bring you there (both apps use methods similar to <code> netstat </code> , which only reveals the hosts). Instead, you might want to take a look at e.g. tPacketCapture, which "sniffs" your network traffic (without requiring root), and saves the protocol in so called <code> .pcap </code> files. These again can be read then by e.g. Shark Reader. | How to listen which URLs an app tries to connect | android |
Twice now my Nexus 7 has randomly rebooted while it was charging and the date was changed to December 31, 1999 and the time has been changed; this time it was set six hours ahead. Does anyone know what's going on and how to stop it? Update: It just happened again today, 4/28/13. This time the time was set 2 hours ahead. It's been charging every time this has happened. Edit: I use the original charger and cable. However, the charging port is a little bent and I can't do a data connection to a PC, and it can be a little hard to get it to charge sometimes. I do not use any docks. My Android version is 4.2.2 I updated the Android version myself using ClockWorkMod Recovery as I am rooted. I have 63 apps installed. I do not use task killers. I have not yet done a factory reset since I won't be able to re-root (see note about charger above) and it would take quit a while to re-download everything since I only have internet occasionally. I will do a factory reset only if it's the last resort. This isn't too big of a problem, just annoying. | I have N7 too. I never heard or read about anything like this. It can be faulty battery or charging circuit, but it can be just SW problem. First, please, add some important details to your question: Did you use original charger? Did you use original USB cable? Did you use original dock? What android version do you have? Do you have this version out of box from the first day (from factory) or did you get it as OTA update or did you update it yourself? How many apps do you have installed? Do you use any task killer? Did you try reset to factory defaults? | Nexus 7 randomly reboots and resets date to 1999 | android |
Where the time information is updated from when the option <code> Date & time settings -> Automatic - Use network-provided values </code> is selected? Is it the GSM, the WiFi, the GPS or any of them? I believe it is from GSM, but I'd like to get a confirmation. | Thanks to stackexchange-url ("t0mm13m")'s comments: The keyword is NITZ - that is where it comes from. Certain ROMs fail to handle it, others do. If it fails, can always fallback on a NTP app like ClockSync (this requires root BTW) :) | Where time information is received from the network? | android |
S-planner app lost 3-days layout after last update. That made me cry. I want to solve it with anyway, change calendar app, or rollback to old s-planner version, or something else? Please point me to any solution. | If you have saved the previous version's <code> .apk </code> , you can re-instate it. That's why I have AppMonster Pro Backup Restore installed and running: it captures each and every <code> .apk </code> installed, so I can always revert to a previous version. If you don't have the old <code> .apk </code> available, and you are talking about a free app, you can check Android Drawer for a previous version's <code> .apk </code> . Download it, make sure you have unknown-sources enabled in your settings, and launch the <code> .apk </code> e.g. from a file explorer. This should install the (old version of the) app without you losing any data. | Samsung s-planner as interface to google calendar, miss 3-day layout | android |
I'm about to buy my first Android phone. My understanding is that, in order to download apps and get updates from Google Play, I need to be permanently signed into a Google account that's linked to my name via credit card information. I find Google's privacy policy too ambiguous to understand what data is logged from Android users. I don't want to share more information than the device needs to operate. Here are some steps I plan to take already: Turn off Google Now Don't use Gmail Use a non-stock browser Use DuckDuckGo for search My questions: What other information does Android send to Google by default? What actions should I take to minimise data collection from Google and other apps? (I'll be using stock Android 4.2 on a Nexus 4.) Is Android still a good choice if I don't plan to use Google's services? | Android is FACC Android might be many things, but certainly not "privacy first". At least not if you want to use Google Playstore as a ressource for your apps. While at creation (initialization) of your google-account on your Android device, you are asked "Do you want to store your data with Google?", this only means "Backups of your apps and their data, as far as they support it". Soon you will discover that your contacts and calendars are automatically synced with Google servers, without asking you, unless you explicitly opted out of that. So if there are any firsts, it's FACC : Android comes F ree of charge, is A d supported, C loud based, and highly C ustomizable. Nobody will argue the first and last items are very appreciable, while "the cloud" is fine with most, and the ads are mostly "accepted" (as long as they are not too agressive, like e.g. Airpush ). So what data do Google services collect? Nick checked some sources (namely, Google's privacy policy), and reported in a below comment: Google says it logs your "phone number, calling-party number, forwarding numbers, time and date of calls, duration of calls, SMS routing information and types of calls" in their privacy policy. It also logs your IP address. But it doesn't say if this info is logged for Android users specifically, or if it's only collected from other services such as Google Voice. And it doesn't say whether it logs data even if you're logged out of Android services. Sometimes what's missing speaks as well (sometimes even louder than the facts mentioned). So starting with the "worst-case scenario", we won't be too much shocked later on. Having created a Google account or not: as soon as a network connection is available, data can be uploaded to any servers. System apps can access identifying data such as imei or IMSI, your phone number, or even your locally stored contacts and calendars (yepp, paranoia-mode enabled again), and with an available network, they could transfer all data they have available anywhere. (Careful: I did not say they do so, just they could ). We may collect device-specific information (such as your hardware model, operating system version, unique device identifiers, and mobile network information including phone number). Google may associate your device identifiers or phone number with your Google Account. (Source: Google Collection, see below) Never forget: While Android itself is Open Source, many apps are not. But also keep in mind: this is not just the case with Android, but with any other system as well. If you want to read some more on Google's privacy: New Google Privacy Policy: Explained (01/2012) Google’s in the Privacy Hot Seat Again (03/2012) Google Collection: What is collected? An excerpt of the privacy policy (06/2012) The Truth About Android Security (10/2012) There's one really scary part: We may collect and store information (including personal information) locally on your device using mechanisms such as browser web storage (including HTML 5) and application data caches . (emphasis mine; source: Google Collection, see above) First steps for privacy At the very first you could check in advance how the device you want to buy comes configured. In most cases, there will be a lot of bloatware pre-installed, which contributes to the "data share". While you cannot really be forced to use those apps, it sometimes is not really possible to get rid of them without rooting. So the less bloatware there is, the better. rooting is not always an option, as in most countries this will void your warranty. Otherwise you could decide for a more privacy-friendly custom-rom . So when you've got your new device, you will have to carefully check all options whether they might be intrusive to your privacy: say "No" to above mentioned "Backup to Google" question. Otherwise, next to the list of apps you've installed from Google Play (which Google knows anyway), and data from several apps, also sensitive information like e.g. your WiFi passwords find their way into the cloud. before you enter any contact or calendar data, make sure to have the sync disabled for them (see Settings→Accounts & Sync ). You can still export your contact list easily direct from within the contacts app -- but if you are going to import anything again after e.g. a factory-reset or on a new device, make sure to check the sync options before that (that was how Google got my data, when I forgot that one time). if you enable Google's location service, this will also send "anonymized" data about places you've been. I placed "anonymized" in quotation marks, as a study recently showed that de-anonymization can be easily achieved. So you might want to turn that off as well. Android without Google? Wouldn't it be more consequent then to use Android without Google? This question has been discussed more than once. And yes, it is certainly possible (and before you say it's a "contradiction in terms", I could split hairs and argue that Android is not developed "by Google", but by the AOSP, the Android Open Source Project). You will have to sacrifice some things (as e.g. a big part of the apps on Google Play are hard to find outside Google Play , for example). But if that's a price you are willing to pay to protect your privacy at max, here are some readings for you: Can an Android phone run without Google? Guide: How To Use Your Android Phone Without Google "Android without Google" discussion @ XDA-Developers XDA developers are also working on a pendant to Google Apps. The project is called NOGAPPS. Privacy with Android and Google? Okay, the above approach might be a bit too exaggerated for the most (but hey, only because we are paranoid, that doesn't mean nobody's after us, right?). So what's the way in the middle? I mean, aside the "first steps" mentioned above? There are many things. In First steps for privacy I already described how to prepare a fresh, unbloated Android that comes with the Google Apps. Now let's look what to care for next: Pre-installed apps There might come some pre-installed apps not belonging to the Android core system. And not "really needed" for the privacy-concerned. Stuff like Google+ or Facebook . Starting with Android 4.0, we can simply go to Settings→Apps→Manage Apps , and disable those we don't want to use. This also might give a boost to performance and improve battery-life , as it rids us of several "background services " those apps were running. At startup. Even if we never started them. Installing new apps Don't click on everything fancy (well, need to remember that for a later part: ads in apps). Of course look around what sounds useful or interesting to you. But make sure to read through the comments (at least scan through them) for possible obstacles. Ignore those one-word comments like "great" and "shit", and also those just declaring "download problems" and the like. They do not speak about the app. But check if there were any privacy concerns in the past, or any other trouble for that sake. Then make sure to check the permissions the app requests. Do they make sense (in the context of what the app is supposed to do)? Critical combinations for privacy are e.g. access to personal data (contacts, calendars, etc) with internet. Or simply internet -- as they could send anything. How hard you argue depends on the grade of paranoia you cultivate :) Privacy helpers Sometimes it's not avoidable to risk some permissions: of course a web browser needs internet access, as does a SMS app need access to your messages. So how to control or restrict them? There are several helpers around (see e.g. this list at lisisoft, will take you a while to scan through it :). You can hide sensitive information using... password stores locked galleries crypt containers (see e.g. Droid Crypt) All these things do not even require your device to be rooted. But really forbidding apps to access things (or control their access) won't work without root . Examples have already be named in stackexchange-url ("bassmadrigal's answer"): LBE Privacy Guard controls access to your data (call-logs, contacts, etc.), to critical functions (initiate calls, access location data, etc.) plus firewall your device (control which apps might access the net via WiFi, mobile data). Careful when you're running JellyBean or higher: the playstore version of this app is known to cause boot-loops there. Rather check XDA-developers, they have a fixed version. PDroid comes in several variants: PDroid Privacy Protection being the original one, followed up by PDroid Manager and OpenPDroid. Other than LBE , these cannot be installed as an app, but need additional preparations -- as they are deeply integrated into the system. This not only adds another layer of protection -- but OpenPDroid is even OpenSource, which adds another layer of trust as well. See also stackexchange-url ("how to fake my personal information"). Want some shocking details? Visit your Google Dashboard, log in with your Google account. Here you can find out whom you contacted most frequently, and what other data Google collected from you. What happens with all your data when you die, or for any other reason become inactive? Ooops? Yes, also something one should keep in mind in this context: Plan your digital afterlife. The linked article introduces the new Inactive Account Manager: You can tell us what to do with your Gmail messages and data from several other Google services if your account becomes inactive for any reason. For example, you can choose to have your data deleted — after three, six, nine or 12 months of inactivity. Or you can select trusted contacts to receive data [...] (Read more in the linked article) Protect your device Now you've taken care no data is leaving your device, even locked data away in "data vaults", and secured the "back-doors" -- you should not leave the front-door wide open. Go to Settings→Security and set up a screen lock. Multiple choices here: the good-old PIN code. Not really secure. At least not, if you use King Roland's PIN for Druidia's planet shield (or president Screw's for his briefcase; in case you do not know Spaceballs, the PIN was "12345" for both). Also not your birthdate or something like that. a pattern-lock . More secure, as a relation to data retrievable by social-engineering is quite unlikely. a password can be highly secure, if you use all characters available: letters (upper and lower case), numbers, special chars. And make it long. E.g. <code> Ti1$spnc3h! </code> -- how to remember that? Check: "This is a $uper secure password nobody can 3asily hack!" Anti-theft protection Also a lot of solutions on the playstore. Highly praised solutions include Cerberus anti theft, avast! Mobile Security, and more. If your device gets lost, with a good anti-theft protection you can check its position sound an alarm remotely back-up (retrieve) stored data, before you... remote-wipe the entire device including its sensitive data and optimally, the anti-theft app automatically informs you in case the thief changes the SIM. It hides itself (stealth mode) and, with root available, can even protect itself against a factory-reset by integrating into the <code> /system </code> partition. So the only chance a thief has is to immediately switch-off the device, put it into a Faraday cage, and flash a new ROM while it's still in there... Anti-virus ...you can left out, if you've followed above steps. Yes, there certainly is malware around. But with all the protection levels taken, and careful selection of sources as well as the apps themselves, risk is absolutely minimal. I never had malware on any of my devices, though I've tested a lot of apps over the past years. After all, Anti-virus (or rather anti-malware, as yet there was no virus sighted for Android) might give a false sense of security ("What shall happen? I've got that Anti-virus."), as they cannot really detect everything (no heuristics, e.g.), but rather check against a database of known malware mainly. Backup Last but not least: Having turned off all Google services (or at least restricted them to a minimum), you will need an alternative backup. To be honest: even if you've decided to answer "Yes" to the above question of "Do you want to backup your data with Google?", you will need a good backup -- as that "Google backup" might be many things, but for sure not complete (apps must explicitly support it by implementing its API, which is done by few apps). For this, if your device is rooted, I strongly recommend a little investion: do yourself (and your device) some good, and buy Titanium Backup PRO. You won't regret it. TiBu is a very powerful tool to backup and restore apps including their data, restore parts of nandroid backups (see: stackexchange-url ("nandroid tag wiki") and stackexchange-url ("backup tag wiki") for details), freeze/unfreeze apps, detach apps from the playstore, and much more. Scheduled backups included. Stored to your sdcard or, if you really want to, to the cloud. Not being rooted, but having a device with Android 4.0 or higher? Take a look at Carbon - App Sync and Backup, so you can at least backup all your apps and their data, plus some of the system data. Scheduled backups are planned here as well. Additionally, you might want to take a look at stackexchange-url ("Full Backup of non-rooted devices") for more details on this topic. Conclusion As I wrote, there usually isn't a simple answer. You can use "Android without Google", cut down all network connections, and so on -- but at latest when you also take out your SIM, it's no longer a smart phone . Android is designed to be network enabled, from its very beginning. You could say "who cares", and let it all go -- and complain when it's too late. Usually you have to find a way in the middle, deciding how much of your privacy you are willing to sacrifice for how much comfort/convenience. I just listed possibilities, showed what is to be found where, and what solutions exist to protect your privacy the one way or the other. Hopefully, my elaborations will help you making your decisions. | What information does stock Android send to Google by default, and how do I opt-out? | android |
I was trying to install JellyBean on my sony xperia tipo and have suddenly come to a halt. I was following this tutorial. The only thing that differed here is I obtained the latest JB from Cyanogenmod . I have successfully installed till the recovery image installation (CWM). Post that I tried selecting the zip which I had downloaded but the installation aborts. Unfortunately it is not meant for tipo and I have come to a halt. I want to know what is the appropriate CM for Xperia Tipo and how do I transfer that appropriate cm_xx.zip to internal storage in the recovery mode. | I was able to solve the question: The problem was i couldnot find the driver for the device.Did it the manual way by selecting the Android adb interface driver. And then used <code> adb push <local> <remote> </code> to push the file on to SdCard. More references on the same can be found here . | Sony Xperia Tipo JB installation unsuccessful | android |
Using the LED to know when a notification is available is of great use to me, but my new Sony Xperia Z appears to only turn on the LED notification light while it is on charge. It turns orange to say it's charging, and turns blue (slow flashing) if I got a missed call or text message, but it will only do so while it's pluggin in. And to confirm I can get a missed call, wait for the LED to turn on, it wont, I put it on charge without disturbing it's 'locked state', and immediately I get slow flashing blue instead of 'charging orange', that is too say I can see before I put it on charge it should be on, but only turns on once i plug it in. I like how it works while it's charging, but I'd like similar functionality while it isn't charging. I am using STAMINA mode, is this a battry save issue? How can I get the LED working as I'd like? | This is a known bug in Xperia Z (sources 1 and 2 ). Currently the only way to restore the LED functionality is to: de-select <code> Settings -> Backup & reset -> Backup my data </code> and <code> Automatic restore </code> perform a factory reset from <code> Settings -> Backup & reset -> Factory data reset </code> Complete the reset manually (that is, without restoring apps/data from the Google account) Hopefully this will be corrected in the next update. | LED on Xperia Z only in operation while charging | android |
I see that if I did a long touch over a Wifi network, I can specify some proxy settings. In my company we use a Isa Proxy server, and each user has to login through domain server. Is there any way to configure that on our tablets? ( Android 4.1) | There are multiple solutions. As you have Android 4.x, long-pressing on a WiFi APN in Settings→Networks & Wireless→WiFi lets you edit an APN. Check the "Advanced" box, and you can configure the proxy. Though this form does not offer separate fields for username/password, here's a trick how to do it: For the server name, enter <code> user:pass@proxyserver </code> (e.g. if the proxy is <code> 10.11.12.1 </code> , user joe, password foo: <code> joe:foo@10.11.12.1 </code> ) -- this is how it works in some browsers for password-protected urls. In case this makes trouble (should not, but who knows), further details can be found at Android-Proxy.Blogspot.DE (don't be irritated by .DE, it's in English). Another possibility would require your device to be rooted: ProxyDroid offers some comfort in connection with proxies. Next to supporting multiple profiles, it is also capable of handling different authentication methods. | How can I configure Android to login to an ISA proxy server? | android |
I moved the question from stackexchange-url ("stackexchange-url I have a rooted Huawei u8825d phone.I want to know if there were no apk files in "/system/app/" folder. So,I moved these apk files from /system/app/ to internal sd-card.When I tried to reboot the phone,it didn't succeed.I hanged up with a white screen. Then I tried to push the apk files from the internal sd-card into the /system/app/ folder by using "adb". <code> D:\MTH\update>adb devices List of devices attached 78F5FD6420D5 device D:\MTH\update>adb remount remount failed: Operation not permitted </code> Then,in another way, <code> D:\MTH\update>adb shell mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system mount: Operation not permitted </code> This is another way. <code> D:\MTH\update>adb shell shell@android:/ $ su su Segmentation fault 139|shell@android:/ $ </code> | Root access or SuperUser is an apk that resides in <code> /system/app </code> . If you remove it with the rest of the apps, you lose root. As a possible workaround, you can try to run: <code> > adb root > adb shell </code> And see if the shell that adb opens is <code> $ </code> (normal user) or <code> # </code> (root). If you're logged as a normal user, I'm afraid you will need to reinstall root in your phone. Also, <code> /system/app </code> is like <code> C:\Windows </code> or <code> /bin </code> (in Linux), if you remove the files there, don't expect the device to run, as it won't have the necessary files to do so. | Android does not boot because of missing apk files in system/app folder | android |
I've been developing in several Android devices since now but this one has me totally puzzled. ADB in Windows detects the device just fine, but I cannot make ADB recognize this device in Linux (Ubuntu 12.04). <code> $ adb devices List of devices attached ???????????? device </code> Device is in USB debugging mode. <code> lsusb </code> shows it as <code> Bus 003 Device 005: ID 18d1:0003 Google Inc. </code> <code> /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules </code> file has the following line: <code> SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="18d1", MODE="0666" </code> <code> ~/.android/adb_usb.ini </code> has <code> 0x18d1 </code> in a line by itself What I've attempted so far: Restart ADB server - no luck Start ADB server as root - no luck Add this line <code> SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="18d1", ATTR{idProduct}=="0003", MODE="0666", GROUP="adbusers" </code> to <code> 51-android.rules </code> and add myself to <code> adbusers </code> group. Restart <code> udev </code> and ADB - no luck Any hint welcome, thanks in advance! | Changing USB port made ADB recognize the Android device. | ADB shows unknown device | android |
I'm facing a strange situation on my Nexus 4, with Android version 4.2.2. I've being using it for the past 2 months without any issues whatsoever (other than a "regular" battery performance), but since last week I started seeing some duplicated albums with images on the Gallery. So, some images and videos appear twice, both with the same album name, but on a different "physical" folder, one on the folder <code> /storage/emulated/0/ </code> and the other on <code> /storage/emulated/legacy/ </code> . I'm absolutely positive that this issue started only last week and the "duplicated" images existed before this issue ever appeared. I haven't installed any custom ROMs, I'm not rooted and haven't installed any apps in the las week (other than Google Translate, but I find it hard to believe that this is related). If this is a duplicated, please feel free to close it and point me to that discussion. If you need any more details, I'll update my question. | That's not duplicates. If you are the "device owner", <code> /storage/emulated/0/ </code> is your storage area (where your files etc. reside). <code> /storage/emulated/legacy/ </code> is a symbolic link, always pointing to the logged-in user's storage. That is, if you are the device owner, and you are logged in, both locations are identical. If some apps show the contained files as "dupes", they obviously have problems interpreting symlinks. While for the gallery, this sounds pretty strange (if we are talking about the stock gallery, and not a 3 rd party app): the very same Android developers who designed the multi-user capabilities should have been aware of that. Still, this is not the first time I heard about it. I cannot find the other issue currently, but a solution is as follows: Go to Settings→Apps→Manage Apps , and scroll to the Gallery app. Open its entry, tap "Clear Cache" and "Delete Data". Tap the back key, and repeat the same for the "Media Storage" app. Don't be afraid about losing data: the Media Scanner will re-collect them at its next run. You can trigger the scan by either... powering off/on the device (bah!) going to Settings→Storage and safely remove the SDCard, then mount it again (OK for one-time use :) using a helper app like e.g. SDrescan or Rescan SD Card! (if you need it more often) Once the Media Scanner is finished, all your media should re-appear in the Gallery app. Hopefully without the "dupes" :) | I'm seeing duplicated images and videos on Gallery | android |
I receive 2 or 3 calls per day from random spammers. I have tried blocking the numbers, but it is no use as they just call with new numbers. Is there anyway to avoid this? I suppose the end solution could be changing my number with a new sim card. I have tried the app MrNumber, and I have tried a few other apps, but they all suffer from the problem of only blocking single numbers. Spam callers have too many number to utilize. Are there any apps that come with an extensive black list pre-installed? Or some method of detecting what other people have marked as spam? | A friend just recommended Call Control to me for this very reason. I'm starting to get spam calls on my cell phone and it disgusts me. Plus there's a black list feature as well. | What app allows me to block "probable" spam calls | android |
I'm facing a rather painful issue with the battery life/charging issue with my Nexus 7 (4.2.2) When idle and plugged into my 2A charger with the stock USB cable, it charges VERY slowly. I'd say under 10% per hour. With just light usage over the course of an afternoon/evening, the charge got dropped to 50% (after charging it overnight and more). I'm sure that something is wrong because no tablet should be performing that way (comparing to my other tablet, an iPad) Update: I plugged my iPad1, iPhone5 and Nexus 7 into the same port on my Macbook Pro Retina. I've added a (mashed up) screenshot of all the 3 cases below and it's clear that the Nexus 7 never even demands anything above 500mA on a 2A port despite using the stock cable (and another microUSB cable). I'm now guessing this is a Nexus 7 firmware/software issue. Any fixes? That extra operating current should be 1600mA so it totals to 2.1A (="2A" ports). Full resolution screenshot Details: Android v4.2.2 (stock image) Settings => Battery Screen (77%) Android OS (6%) Tablet idle (6%) WiFi (5%) Maps (4%) (Maps isn't even running ... weird!) Android System (2%) I mostly use Chrome, Currents and Play Magazines so it's just light reading. I'm surprised those apps don't show up on the battery energy audit list (which is great compared to iOS BTW). Question: What can I do to charge this device faster and use less battery? My expectations are anchored by my other tablet (an iPad) which charges a lot faster (2A charger again) and uses about 20% each day for casual reading vs 50% each day on the Nexus 7. | Not necessarily an answer but I ended up using the stock charger that came with the Nexus 7 itself. I leave it plugged overnight. None of my other "2A" chargers can charge it quickly nor can my computers. This sucks because now I have only a single rapid charging station, next to my bed (vs my office, my living room etc). Standard protocol or not for charging, this kills my user experience compared to how my iPad just works without a headache. For battery consumption issues, I disabled auto-update in Google Play as well as disabled auto-update in Google Currents and Google Magazine. Seems they were downloading a lot of data in the background killing my battery life. Anyways, now that I tinkered with it the overall experience is much better. | Nexus 7 charges very slowly, even with 2 amp chargers | android |
Okay, so I already ordered a new battery, but in the mean time. Why won't my phone charge? I have tried every charger/cable in my house and car (over 10 chargers and around 15 cables). Double checked the setups with my tablet to make sure they work. Checked battery temp with a WiFi tether app, shows 27-28 degrees centigrade. Moving so I know it works. Restarted the phone, reseated the battery. Replaced the battery with a brand new one. It is even hesitant to charge when the phone is off. It would show initial charge symbol, then go to the charging animation for 5 seconds and restart. This is the only way to get any juice into my phone by the way. Update: If I take the battery out while it's on the charger the screen flickers. At this point if I wiggle the cord I can get the flickering to stop, but I can also get the phone to turn off. So, I bet the solder points on the USB are faulty... | MicroUSB ports on phones are delicate and can be prone to losing a proper connection to the power on the circuit board if you're not ultra careful about making sure to not stress the connection point (like having the phone plugged in and the cable is taut). My Wife has already gone through 2 phones and a laptop due to using them while the power plug is stretched and basically over time causing the power connection to come off the circuit board. This sounds like the issue you're having and the only solutions are if you take the phone apart and re-solder the loose connection (requires ULTRA fine soldering skills) or take it in for repair and they'll likely have to replace the mainboard. | Why doesn't my phone charge? | android |
Anybody else have this issue? It's freaking annoying as every time i revisit somewhere and want to use their wifi, i have to get the password and enter it in again. Any suggestions on how i can resolve this issue? | Likely the wpa_supplicant file is corrupted. If you are rooted, you might be able to use an app like Titanium Backup to wipe the data for it. If you aren't rooted, I am not sure what all you can wipe. You can try and wipe the Settings database (Settings -> Apps -> All -> Settings -> Wipe Data, which might include the file, but I don't know for sure (this will obviously erase all your Android settings).. But you should be able to fix it by performing a Factory Reset/Data Wipe (Settings -> Backup and Reset -> Factory Data Reset). Google should remember your apps and automatically install them once you type your password back in, and all your sdcard content should stay untouched. | Galaxy Nexus ICS Does't remember wifi Passwords - ICS 4.2.2 | android |
0.4 device Sony Xperia MT27i For development use. I describe one screen the here, and display my question: Image Screen with red mark (click image to enlarge) I want to remove the icon from my device screen. How can I do that? | Its power saving symbol and you have to disable from Setting for remove symbol. | How to Remove this battery symbol of head in Android 4.0.4 device Sony Xperia MT27i? | android |
Yesterday I installed a custom rom on my Samsung Galaxy S2. Before I had ICS 4.0.3 installed. Now my external sdcard does not mount automatically on the phone. How can I get this working? | It turns out that the location or link to the external sdcard has moved from /sdcard/external_sd to /extSdCard, while the /sdcard/external_sd was blank. So I thought that the card was not mounted, but in fact it was. | Mount external sdcard after upgrade to Jelly Bean 4.2.2 | android |
I'm having problem using youtube. I use different gmail accounts for e-mail and youtube and I would like them to be separated. Is there a way to tell youtube to use a different account from the "system" one? | Yes, add both your account to Settings > Account, then you can choose which account to sign in to on the YouTube app. Make sure to sign out first Swipe left, and tap on Sign In You should be presented with an account chooser | Is there a way to use a different account with youtube? | android |
The Xperia Play is a one-of-a-kind phone that supports a physical keyboard for mobile gaming. Many games on the Play Store have been optimized to take advantage of these inputs. Now, I've seen some videos showing that the Xperia Z & ZL have support for the DualShock 3 (the PS3 controller) without the need of rooting ( 1 , 2 ). However, I was wondering: are games compatible with the Xperia Play keyboard automatically compatible for controller play on the Xperia Z/ZL? Or both types of optimization are completely different? | User poo-tang provided an answer in the xda forums : Xperia Play games don't work this way so won't be interchangeable. These new games are HID (Native Android built in virtual controller/mouse) supported (only available on Android 3.1 and up) Xperia Play uses Sony framework only. The games are coded for one or another (sometimes both if developer has added support for both) | Are all Xperia Play Optimized games compatible with the Xperia Z/ZL's native DualShock 3 support? | android |
I have synced contacts from my Google account on my Samsung Galaxy. Now in my contacts are all kinds of people I've written once an email to, which Gmail stored in my contacts. Some contacts even show up when I search, while they are not even to be found in my contact list on Gmail. I would like to keep some control over which contacts I want to see in my phone or not. I would like especially to show those who have a phone number in my phone. How do I filter my contacts from Google? | Click on the people (contact) app and click the menu button and go to Settings -> Contacts to Display -> Customize. Then make sure only "My Contacts" and "Stared in Android" are enabled. Google shouldn't be adding random emails to My Contacts (since those should be ones you specifically added and the "All other contacts" should contain all the addresses you sent emails to). If those emails are part of My Contacts, I believe your only option is to manually go through your contacts and change it. Luckily, Google has a web interface to allow this at http://contacts.google.com . When you are there, you can click the checkbox on all the contacts you don't want shown on your phone and then click the Groups icon (3rd button over, it shows 3 people on it), and then uncheck the My Contacts checkbox. The next time your phone syncs your contacts, it will fix your contacts list. | How to filter my Google contacts? | android |
I would like to know what other functionality is provided by the magnetometer inside android devices besides allowing applications to display a compass. Can an app do anything else with it besides display compass functionality? | Magnetometer reports the magnetic strengths on the three axes of the phone. Can work as compass , metal detector and can also be used to increase mapping accuracy. | What information is available to an app from the magnetometer? | android |
I've come across the term "native web app" also known as "hybrid app". I know what "web apps" and "native apps" are, the difference being that the former are downloaded and run within a web browser and the latter are code (not html) and run a little faster without requiring a web browser to interpret them. So what is a "native web app", how can a web app be native? | Unlike native apps, web apps can't access low level API of system (to access hardware etc) unless it is supported by web standards (most aren't supported to maintain web app portability). Here, native web apps comes to rescue. In Native Web Apps , web codes (HTML, CSS & JS) run in a native wrapper code. The wrapper code is native (can use low level API) which contains <code> webview </code> to render the web app. So, it taps the benefits from both worlds (that's why its called Hybrid App ). For example, Facebook app (in Play Store) is a native web app. When you see your timeline, friends' profiles etc in this app, you actually see webpages. But, at the same time, this app can access your camera, Android's system-wide share menu etc. Another great example is Google Currents . | What is a "native web app"? | android |
I've browsing through some jargon and cannot figure out what exactly the difference is between USIM and SIM. While not strictly an android question I figure all android phones are bound to have either one or the other so any clarification on this issue would be greatly appreciated. | SIM is a old guy, but USIM (card's name is UICC, USIM is logical module) is new designed specially for UMTS (3G) generation. While SIM can also be used to access 3G, USIM has extra advantages over SIM: 3G Video Calls (not supported with SIM) Higher Security: USIM introduces new algorithm to prevent unauthorized access to phone line. Plus, it encrypts your calls and internet traffic with stronger encryption keys. It stores contacts securely too. Bigger and Improved phonebook: USIM allows you to store thousands of contacts (limit on SIM is 255). Each contact can now contain email id and more than one phone number. USIM can run small applications like computer (SIM's analog is simple SIM menu which can't compute something by own other than communicating with carrier's server). | SIM vs. USIM inside Android smartphones | android |
Is there a difference between leaving an app by pressing the "back" button vs. pressing the "home" button? I've got an app which includes a countdown timer. The app says it will notify me when the timer reaches zero but only if the app is minimized (home button) and not if it's closed (back button). Is there really a difference here? Note that I've confirmed that the app stays available in the list of running apps (the "history" button, or whatever it's called) regardless whether I use "back" or "home" so I am confused. Has the developer misunderstood this? Details: I'm running the app Ingress Portals on a stock Nexus 4. | In general, when you leave an app with home , or by launching another app from the recents menu, Android keeps the state of the app around for a while. That includes the stack of which screens you've looked at, the position of scrolling things, selected items, the state of checkboxes and the text in text fields, and other such things. It'll only discard that state if the device runs low on memory, or if you don't come back to the app for a long time. If you instead press back , it takes the current screen off that stack, throws away that state, and goes to the screen you were looking at before. Repeated back presses keep doing this until you're all the way out of the app, and it has no state left. (Note that this is only the state of the screen as I described above. The app ought to save any persistent state, such as the document you were editing, or your high score.) As Sachin Shekhar says, use home if you want to come back to the app in the same state; or back if you are done with the app and you want to see the main screen or starting screen next time you start it. In addition, note that apps can change the behaviour of the back button (such as how web browsers usually make it go "back" in the browser instead of leaving the browser completely), but they can't change the behaviour of the home button. You can always use home to get out of a misbehaving app. There's one more thing. Android also allows apps to create what it calls a <code> Service </code> . This is a part of the app that runs in the background, with no visible part (unless it sends notifications). Any app that has a long-running task to perform, such as a download manager, or a torrent client, should use a <code> Service </code> so that the download keeps going even if the app isn't on your screen. It should make sure the <code> Service </code> exits when all downloads are finished, so you don't need to worry about how to exit it. Perhaps this app is using a <code> Service </code> to run the countdown, and it has changed the behaviour of the back button so that as well as leaving the app, it also stops the <code> Service </code> . That could be why you get that instruction. But it's only that way because the author chose to do it that way: he could just as easily enable and disable the countdown with a checkbox or button inside the app. It's not standard behaviour, and in general, you shouldn't expect to have to use home to keep downloads or long-running tasks running. | Home button or back button to leave an app? | android |
Every so often, seemingly random, this notification appears in my notification bar, but not in the tray. The circles on the left in the notification bar. I have no clue what it's related to. There's no notification if I slide the tray down. It doesn't stay long, about the time I check for it in the notification tray, it's gone. I develop for my phone. Would anything on the development side of things trigger this weird notification? It's a Samsung Galaxy S3 running CyanogenMod nightlies, specifically 10.1-20130405-NIGHTLY-d2spr which is Android 4.2.2. EDIT: I've noticed that this appears very consistently when I have Moon+ Reader open. It does not appear to be a notification caused by that app, but instead appears to be that the app is somehow "muting" notifications that happen while it is open. Is there something in the API that allows for the silencing of notifications originating from other apps? | I've found it in the Android API: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/View.html#setSystemUiVisibility(int) A flag, SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LOW_PROFILE, can be passed to indicate that certain UI elements be put into a Low Profile and offer less of a distraction to the user. If I had a nexus device (really any device with soft buttons across the bottom) then I would also notice those buttons being replaces by the same dim circle I'm seeing in my navbar. This has been available since 4.0 and is intended for book readers, games, and other immersive applications. | What is this in my system tray? | android |
I've read that the phone can use GPS, and if not Wi-Fi, and if not cellular triangulation to determine your location. How do I check what the phone thinks my location is? Also, how come I am not seeing the image of the GPS satellite on the notifications slideout bar at the top of the phone alongside the signal, the Wi-Fi icon, and the circle with four line segments in the shape of a target (which I have yet to figure out what it stands for). Does it mean GPS reception is bad in my city or do I have to somehow enable GPS in some way? | To see what the device thinks is your current location, you can simply open the pre-installed maps/navigation app (if there is any; usually Google Maps comes pre-installed). If there is none pre-installed, simply install one from the playstore. Or check another GPS tool like e.g. GPS Status & Toolbox if you don't need a full-fledged "maps & navigation" app. As for the status icon: this will only show when GPS is used (and not only "available"), i.e. when some app is accessing GPS to determine your current location. It has nothing to do with reception quality -- which, in case of GPS, is rarely location-dependent, but rather depends on other conditions such as clouds, trees, high buildings (all things which hinder the free view to the satellites). | GPS and icons on the Android notification bar | android |
Seriously, it specifically states that it can use the camera and audio recording any time it wants, whether or not I wish it to . Why is Chrome on Android requesting those permissions? Should I be concerned? (Emphasis my own.) | The Chrome page in the app store says this about the new permissions: This version requests two new permissions, Camera and Modify Audio Settings, to support WebRTC, an experimental feature under development. WebRTC itself is designed to expose your camera and mic to the browser, so that web-apps can implement video-conferencing and other multimedia solutions in-browser. The WebRTC people have at least nominally considered the privacy implications, by adding an info-bar to Chrome: Chrome on Windows is said to have access to your camera and mic. So if you use Chrome on Windows (and soon Firefox too) then you are implicitly trusting the vendor of those programs to not take pictures of you when you don't authorize it. The same is true for Android. One hopes that they don't introduce security flaws that allow unauthorized access to the camera/mic by malicious websites. As to what you can do about it, on a rooted phone you can uninstall Chrome or install a permissions-control app that denies permissions to installed apps. You can switch to a different browser that doesn't support WebRTC. Otherwise you're stuck with what Android provides. If you decide that you trust Microsoft or Apple more than Google, you can switch. Or maybe you trust an open-source Android variant like Cyanogenmod. For myself I consider the fact that Google already has a bunch of apps on my phone which have access to my camera and mic, so if Google wanted to spy on me they already can. Heck, they could build that right into the OS and just not tell anyone. Google Apps that can access the camera/mic: Search Voice Search Plus Translate Drive Shopper Goggles Youtube Remote Youtube Not to mention the camera app which is built-in to the phone. Edit: The question was updated with a screenshot of what the phone shows when you are prompted to update the app. Unfortunately at this time there doesn't seem to be a way for app developers to document why they need particular permissions, except in external sources. For example, this Chrome update states why it needs the permission in the "What's New" page. However, if you don't look there and just see the scary warning, you are left wondering what is going on. As an app developer I wish we could add help text to the permissions page to explain to the user why we need the permissions and how the privacy policy protects the user. Google could certainly make this more usable and less scary. | Why does the new Chrome update want the permission to use my camera and audio recording? | android |
I've got an Android P690. When I go to compose text in a text message I would like to input it via the microphone by using Google's networked speech recognition engine. However when I hold down the search hardware button and speak, and finish speaking, Android opens up a web browser and performs a web search with the spoken text instead of inserting the text in the SMS text box. And when I press the back button the text I spoke is not in the text box either. So my question is, how do I use the microphone to compose an SMS's body? | Sorry, now I see the small microphone icon and globe icon for setting the speech language (keeping the globe pressed allows you to choose which languages to toggle back and forth between) on the soft keyboard that comes up. | Using speech-to-text in text messages | android |
When I place a call I hear the traditional rotary dial phone ringing sound until the person at the other end, whose ringtone most likely is completely different, answers. What I was wondering is, can I set a ringtone for the person placing the call to hear until the other party answers? If so, can such "ringtone" be set differently for every person called? | The sound someone hears when they call a phone is dependent on the person they are calling. This is why, no matter where in the world you are, when you call a US number, you get the US "ringing" tone, whereas if you call a European number, you get the European "ringing". The providers of the person you are calling are what provides the ringing tone. Some carriers, like Verizon, offer the ability for you to set tones for others to hear, usually for an added monthly fee. Verizon would essentially answer the call and play the music while it continues to try and reach you. Once you answer (or it is sent to voicemail), then the music would end and Verizon would connect the call on their end. This might be manageable on the phoen via an app from Verizon, but you would be changing their settings for your phone number that is stored on their servers. Nothing locally on the phone is capable of changing what the incoming caller will hear for a ringtone. | Setting "phone ringing" sound for outgoing calls | android |
I recently bought a Xperia E and since I am not a Facebook user I'd like to remove it from my phone. That also applies for Google+ and other stuff which is installed on my phone by default but I am realy not going to use it so it just consumes my memory and battery. I tried to go for example to Settings-> Apps-> Google+ but there is only disable option, not unistall like with manually installed apps. | If it came pre-installed with your phone then its a system app. You cannot uninstall it (unless you have your phone rooted, which i think you don't have). Best option for you is to disable the app. In this case, the app won't run and won't consume any CPU or battery (if that's your problem). If you are concerned about storage space running out then this won't solve the storage problem. | How to remove pre-installed apps from Xperia E? | android |
If I root my Desire permanently can I reset it to default manufacturers settings by installing official android version? | Whenever you root your device, you are adding root access to the current OS. If you just perform the Factory Reset, it will retain root (as this just deletes user data), but if you restore the stock image, it will completely wipe the OS and will put the system back as HTC intended it (which would remove root). You would then need to re-root the device. | Rooting Desire permanently | android |
I can't find how to take screen shot on my Samsung Galaxy Fit device. I noticed that it took some screenshots and I do not know how it happened. By installing third party app it works, but I do not want to do this because they run their services in the background. Any help in this regard would be highly appreciated. | Home + Power --or-- Home + Back | How can I take a screenshot on my Samsung Galaxy Fit? | android |
The contacts system on my Xperia Z doesn't search through all my contacts, for some reason. All of the contacts were imported from my Google account, which has no groups or anything special. As an example, I have the following contacts: <code> Antti H***** Antti J***** Antti K***** Antti S***** </code> Now, if I search for <code> antti </code> , I only get the last two contacts. The same applies for sending SMS messages. If i compose a new SMS and tap the recipients field and write <code> Antti </code> , it only shows details for the same two contacts as the contact search. For the other two, I have to go to Contacts, scroll to the contact, tap it and then tap the SMS button. The type of the phone number (home, mobile, work...) doesn't affect this. The contacts work fine otherwise (show up on incoming calls, SMS threads etc.). It seems that the contacts that do show up are the ones I have on Facebook. However, I can't find any settings that specify which accounts to search. Is there some setting that I've failed to find? Oh yeah, everything is stock, but not vanilla. Edit: Tried searching with Google Now, but that won't find the contacts either. | I was in contact with Sony support, and the problem was in the initial import (or sync) from Google contacts. Something was corrupted, even though no corruption was visible. I got this fixed by: Exporting the contacts from Google Contacts Deleting the contacts from the phone Importing the contacts to Google Contacts Syncing the contacts from <code> Settings -> Accounts -> Google -> <my Google account> -> Menu -> Sync now </code> (optional) Removing HaxSync from accounts (or other additional contact syncs) (optional) Adding HaxSync account After this all contacts were included in the search. | Contact search in Xperia Z doesn't show all contacts | android |
When I plug a USB drive to my Samsung tablet (using USB connection kit), my Android 4.0.4 automatically starts the Archive application, in order to see which is the content of the pen drive. The same happens with an application that I wrote, Android popup a message to match plugged device with my application. Is it possible to avoid this autostart? How? Thanks | Why are there any apps starting when the drive is attached? First you need some background information what's going on there. Many things on Android are "event-based". That is, when "something" happens, the system issues a "broadcast" saying so. Some well-known and easy-to-understand events include boot completed storage (un)mounted (usually sdcard removed/inserted, or some external drive) battery low network changed Apps can register "listeners" for specific broadcast-events (intents), so they get started/awakened/informed then. Again some examples: media-scanner wants to know when a new storage "entity" got attached, to check for music/pictures/videos to insert into its internal database location service wants to know about network changes: if there's a new network, it might be interesting to determine the current location several apps (far too many) want to start at boot So obviously, your Archive app has registered a listener for the storage broadcast, and similarly your app. How to get rid of that? For your own app, you could adjust its code correspondingly. But that's no task for us here, but if needed, you can discuss that at our sister-site stackexchange-url ("stackoverflow.com"). For all other apps (the following is applicable to other combinations as well), you will need your device to be rooted (details can be found in the rooting stackexchange-url ("tag-wiki")). Then go to the playstore and get yourself an app like e.g. Autorun Manager PRO (yes, for the following you will need the Pro if you decide for this app. I chose it nevertheless, as it turned out to be the best in my tests a while ago): AutoRun Manager (click image to enlarge) As you can see in the screenshot, AutoRun Manager permits you to disable each listener an app may have registered separately. And their names are (in most cases) quite descriptive. So use ARM, go into its "Advanced Mode", look up the Archive app, and check what listeners it has registered. Disable the one sounding reasonable -- and your issue should be solved. You can change that anytime you want. Whenever the modified app is updated, you will have to do that again. You also can simply revert all changes with two taps, as ARM has a specific "restore" feature for that. PS: As you have tagged your question auto-start , you could have hovered your mouse over that tag, and select the "info" link. This will bring you to the stackexchange-url ("tag wiki"), where you can find most of what I just wrote (and maybe even some additional information) -- so I recommend reading that as well. Furthermore, take it as hint for the future: Many of our tag-wikis contain first-aid. And in many cases that might already be enough to solve an issue :) | How to avoid application autostart when a usbdrive is plugged to tablet | android |
I have downloaded touch recovery from clockworkmod website . How do I flash downloaded .img file using Odin / Mobile Odin tool? | Quoting the answer from XDA Forum . In linux or windows with cygwin. <code> $ tar -H ustar -c recovery.img > recovery.tar $ md5sum -t recovery.tar >> recovery.tar $ mv recovery.tar recovery.tar.md5 </code> | How to convert .img to .tar to flash using Samsung odin tool? | android |
When I connect my HTC Sensation (firmware: CM 10) to some PC I need to enter a passcode (to unlock the phone) and explicitly allow mounting as usb drive. But when I connect SGN2 it enables MTP or PTP without confirmation so, for example, if I ask some guy to charge my phone from his laptop he will immediately gain access to all photos on the phone! So I wonder how to disable this feature. The configuration dialog allows me to choose which mode to use, not to disable multimedia transfer. | I've probably found the solution: run the following command as root <code> setprop persist.sys.usb.config adb </code> and reboot the phone. Now my phone doesn't show an "usb connection" notification and "Android File Transfer" (an MTP implementation for MacOS) doesn't see the phone. In the same time adb works fine. | Galaxy Note 2: Disable MTP/PTP | android |
How do I turn off Google Card notifications? Let's say I search for an address - Google will then show me a card in the notification area with driving directions to that location. I don't want the notification. Is there a way to prevent them from showing up? | According to this help , Google Now notifications can be limited or turned off. Most notifications for Google Now cards can be turned off or set to low or standard priority. Low priority notifications appear at the bottom of the notifications shade without any additional signal. From the lower right corner of the Google Now screen, touch Menu > Settings > Google Now > card name > and adjust the settings under Notifications. | How Do I Turn Off Google Now Card Notifications? | android |
I have created an Android application using Eclipse, and now I'd like to install the APK on Bluestacks which is running on Windows 7. How can I install an APK on the Bluestacks player? | I just copied my APK file into the <code> Apps </code> folder, which is created by default in the <code> Libraries </code> folder at the time of BlueStacks installation. Then I just double clicked on the APK file to install it to the App Player. Now I can see the application icon on the home screen of the App Player and I am able to run it from there. | How can I install APK file on Bluestacks app player? | android |
I just installed VimTouch ; it works as well as you expect a text editor to work on a phone. What is the point of the separate " VimTouch Full Runtime " app? | From browsing the source code , this appears to be the same as the vim-runtime package as provided in most Linux distributions. It ships a variety of Vim scripts which provide additional functionality, such as additional color schemes, file type handling, automatic indentation, etc. Without this package, Vim operates in a minimal mode and many features that are provided by these scripts are not available. | What does the "VimTouch Full Runtime" do? | android |
I recently upgraded to ICS (4.1.2) and have lost the ability to share photos from the gallery via email and wifi. The option was there before the upgrade. But not now. Is this a bug ? | After some mucking around, I discovered Google (un-intuitively) changed the way you can share photos in the gallery for email and wifi. You now need to do this Open Gallery > Select Menu button > select "Select Items" > select the share button at the top of screen. All the icons should appear now in the share dialog window. | How do you "Share via" email & wifi option from gallery ? It's missing | android |
I want to root Micromax Canvas 2 A110 having Android ICS 4.0.4 . How do I root it? | The following instructions are from androidforums.com site. The summary of the rooting procedure ( just copied and pasted - credit goes to sagarwep the poster of the procedure) is as below: Enable USB debugging on your device. To do that, go to Settings > Development > USB debugging. Connect your device to any PC/laptop. The drivers will be installed automatically. Download Bin4ry for Root A110 By sagarwep.7z and unzip. Run <code> RunMe.bat </code> from the extracted location. A command prompt with weird green letters will pop-up on your screen. Follow the onscreen instructions carefully. To start off, you willl need to type in a "1" and press enter. [Note: If you ever want to Unroot your Micromax A110, follow the above steps till you reach this one and then, instead of typing "1", type "x" and hit enter. Follow the instructions that appear on the command prompt after that.] Your device will reboot during the process after which Bin4ry will copy some files to your device. With RootChecker you can verify whether the phone is rooted or not. | How do I root Micromax Canvas 2 A110? | android |
On my Android phone, under the list of all phone calls, there are several distinct icons to distinguish between: outgoing calls (a green arrow pointing away from the phone) missed calls (a red arrow bouncing off the phone) received calls (a blue arrow pointing into the phone) However, the user interface does not distinguish between placed calls which were answered on the other end and calls which were not answered on the other end. Does anyone have a user interface which distinguishes between these two scenarios or does anyone know of an upgrade I may perform in the user interface (perhaps even by going as far as installing CyanogenMod) so as to account for this difference in the user interface? I am running Android 2.3.4 (GingerBread) on an LG Optimus Net P690. | You can use a new dialer which supports this. I have tried Swipe Dialer Free and it does this (You get the same icon for all outgoing calls whether they were answered or not but for the un-answered call, you will have "Not Answered" mentioned" P.S. - If your dialer shows the duration of call then I think for Non-Answered outgoing calls, it will show "0m 0s". All other calls will have different durations. So, you can differentiate between them (if this is what your purpose is). | Distinguishing between placed received and non-received calls | android |
Using a new Nexus 4 with OS 4.2.2. I've pulled my contacts onto the phone (from Exchange/OL using Companion Link) and they are synchronized to the phone's Contacts (people?) app. I can see them from both the Google People app and from the phone app. I have over 3000 contacts, and am trying to set up my favorites for people I call regularly (a list of about 20 contacts.) This was very easy to do on my last Android phone, and the favorites would show me a list of contacts. On this 4.2.2 phone, the favorites area is displayed with the contacts' pictures as a huge tile, with the contact names at the bottom of the tile. I do not maintain pictures for my contacts, so I do not want to take up all of this screen real estate for non-existent pictures. And, even if I had pictures, I wouldn't want them to appear as these huge tiles when I'm trying to look at a list of contacts. How can I do one of the following things? Force the phone/people apps to not show the picture tiles in lists. Remove the picture tiles altogether. Ensure that the picture tiles do not appear when there is no picture. | Beneath those tiles will be a simple list labeled "Frequently Contacted", and they're listed with a much smaller photo (if one exists). So, as you use the phone, it will automatically build that list up for you of the people you contact the most. Otherwise, there's not a way to change the layout of the app. Even if you were to create a contact group for those contacts, the group contact display uses the same sort of large photos. Your other option would be a third-party app. | Phone favorite - remove picture icon due to screen real estate | android |
I need to factory reset my phone. However, I need to know whether I will be able to download the applications I paid for on Google Play once I do the reset, and download them onto my phone at no additional cost. If once I do a factory reset I need to pay again to download all the apps, then is there a way to back them up prior to doing a reset, and then reinstall them back again? | Before doing factory reset, you can backup your phone settings to the cloud by going to <code> Settings </code> > <code> Backup & reset </code> and checking the box that says Backup my data. Once done, you can reset your phone, and when you set it up again with your gmail ID it was backed up with, the settings and apps, everything will be restored (wifi APs as well). | Can I restore downloaded paid apps after a factory reset? | android |
I have a Samsung Nexus S. I have erased <code> recovery </code> and <code> boot </code> pertitions using <code> fastboot erase <partition> </code> and when I do <code> fastboot flashall -w </code> it stops on <code> sending 'boot' (XXXX KB)... </code> What might be wrong? UPDATE: I successfully managed to flashed my NS back to stock ROM. Please refer to my own answer below. Regards, | NOTE: attempting <code> fastboot flash </code> on ur device may cost you your data. So be careful I figured out that I had an outdated Android SDK. I downloaded the latest one, and did: <code> fastboot flash boot </code> <code> fastboot flash recovery </code> <code> fastboot flash userdata </code> and in a couple of minutes I had the stock ROM up and running. | fastboot flashall -w Halts | android |
First of Tablet info : Model number : Micromax P275 Android version : 4.0.4 Baseband version : v3.0 Kernal version : 3.0.8+ linda@SKYWORTHSERVER3 #52 Fri Sep 21 14:00:53 CST 2012 Build number : P275_HW.V0.1_V3.0_20120921 I dont know anything about android now the issue is that the screen keeps randomly jerking and there are random touches that happen which will open apps and close apps randomly. this happens after few minutes since Tablet turn on. When these things happen i cannot do anything. even if i try to power down by pressing the power key the dialog box disappears because of this random behavior. i observer this behavior mainly when i travel in bus. so i'm thinking that the vibrations are affecting the accelerometer and thus causing the random movements. When i'm in a stationary place i rarely see this issue, but it has occured. now i disabled 1) Auto rotate 2) Disabled all options in Developer options except Force hardware rendering . the system update will happen and i cant turn it off(atleast i dont know). my main useage in the Tablet are 1) pdf reading 2)videos 3)small c programmin(using CCtools). please help me with this issue. its is very very frustrating. last thing,i brought this device 28 days ago. also i would like links on reinstalling android. | From your description, there are two obvious possibilities. The first is that some static electricity or oil on the touch screen is causing it to think you're touching it. Try giving the screen a good wipe. Also, earth yourself by holding a metal water pipe with one hand, and cover the screen with your other hand. The alternative is a manufacturing defect in the touch screen. Faulty touch screens are quite a common problem with cheaper tablets. If you can manage to do this with all the false touches, try to install a paint program from Google Play and run it on your tablet. Leave the paint program running for a few minutes, and any false touches will paint on the screen. You can see where they are happening. You may see a pattern to them, such as all being in one strip of the screen, or always at one point. That would confirm that it's a fault in the touch screen, in which case you should return your tablet and get it replaced. | screen keeps jerking and there are automatic touches | android |
After downloading a PDF file from Gmail with the help of ASTRO File Manager in my Samsung Galaxy S III , I tried to find the PDF file to attach in the email (Gmail). Unfortunately, only images get attached, but none of the PDF files. How can I do that? Where exactly am I going wrong in the process? | You can attach files with the gmail app. Just click attach image, select Astro to browse and select the PDF you wish to attach | Upload PDF file to Gmail | android |
I have an Android mobile (Galaxy S3), and am really worried that my corporate information will be retrieved after a reset. I've seen shared video showing it is possible to recover data after hard reset. Mac has an interesting format option, i.e., to write zeros all over hard disks (lengthy but effective). Is it possible to perform such formatting on the Android phone? And how? | There is an app for this called Secure Deletion for Android, which can be used to overwrite the data. Another way to obfuscate the data would be to encrypt the device before using factory reset. This encrypts all your data, and after the device is reset, it will be very unlikely that the data can be recovered. | Formatting Android storage "zero out" technique | android |
In the "quick settings" grid you get by pulling down the right-hand end of the notification bar, the top-left item is a photo. I'd like to edit or remove this photo, but when I tap it, it says "The contact doesn't exist." How can I edit or remove this photo? | Go into the People or Contacts app. At the top of the list is a heading Me with a special item to Set up my profile . Click that item and it takes you to the "New contact" screen. On this screen, to the right of the "name" field, there's a little grey "contact icon" box. If you click that you can replace the photo with a picture from the Gallery or by taking a photo. | remove pic in quick setting grid | android |
I am following this tutorial for moving apps to sd card. How to Install Android Apps to the SD Card by Default But My Default Location is not changing. And My Phone Memory is full and unable to install new apps. | After Android Tools Update command <code> adb shell pm setInstallLocation 2 </code> has been changed to <code> adb shell pm set-Install-Location 2 </code> Updated Tutorial can be founded here . | How to Install Android Apps to the SD Card by Default | android |
I have Xperia mini pro (4.1.B.0.587 Stock ram), and my bootloader is unlocked. But I could not boot to recovery mode by pulsing volume down button. I press it after phnoe shakes and before displaying "SONY". What is wrong? Update: Whene I install stock ROMs (using .ftf) files The recovery mode is wiped. | It is not clear whether you had flashed CWM's recovery (through boot image). If you had done, you have to press vol up and down while powering on. If not, you do not have a recovery mode at all. You have to flash it using fastboot as described in CyanogenMod's How to install CM in Sony Xperia Mini Pro . | Booting to recovery | android |
I have a problem. Googling shows that other people have similar problems, but unfortunately the solutions that worked for them didn't work so me, so I'm going to have to ask myself. I have a (rooted) Samsung GT-S5830i ("Samsung Galaxy Ace") running Android 2.3.6, and when I plug it into my Ubuntu 12.04 desktop using the usual kind of usb-to-micro_usb lead...nothing seems to happen. The command (on the Ubuntu machine) <code> $ lsusb </code> gives the same output whether or not the phone is plugged in. In particular the phone does not seem to be being seen by the computer at all. Similarly the phone does not give me the usual "you've just been plugged into a computer" symbol in the toolbar at the top, and in particular I am not being asked by the phone at all whether I'd like to connect via USB -- the phone offers me no new dialogues or options after being connected; it just sits there charging [in particular it's not the case that e.g. the wire is completely broken, or the port is completely dead; I've tried more than one port on the computer anyway]. I have tried more than one USB connector wire. I have tried more than one USB port on the computer. I don't know where to start debugging this issue. I can access the files on the phone using various other methods, for example via Dropbox, Software Data Cable, bluetooth etc. The issue is simply that this particular method doesn't work and I don't know why. [Note added later on: I suspect this assertion is actually false -- I think that what I should have said was "yesterday I could access the files on the phone using various other methods; today I couldn't access them on my ubuntu machine, but it hadn't occurred to me that in fact I couldn't access them on any machine at all via any method."] | I rebooted and it fixed the problem :-\ [and then several weeks later it occurred to me that I should note this fact here, in case it happens to anyone else]. Indeed, I suspect that my phone was in a weird state and probably I could not access the SD card on any computer at all at that point, regardless of what I implied in the question. | I cannot use a USB cable to access my version 2.3.6 phone's SD card with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS | android |
I'm trying to use the " Terminal-IDE " development environment. I think it's FANTASTIC from what I can see so far, but at the moment its promise is more than it delivers (to me at least) because I'm having trouble getting to / from the phone as discussed in the HELP literature. The wiki link on that page is non-functional. While I have specific issues that may appear to be more of a generic nature and may appear to belong on, say ServerFault or SuperUser, I think they're likely to be common to people using Terminal-IDE... I'm going to post those issues here in AndroidEnthusiasts as so far this seems like the best place.... Thanks. BY THE WAY, a new tag, "Terminal-IDE" should be created, but, while I have plenty of reputation in StackOverflow, et al, I haven't got that reputation HERE. Would someone PLEASE create this tag (and let me know!), so we Terminal-IDE users can find related questions and answers? THANKS! | In communications with the coder who created Terminal-IDE, known only as Spartacus Rex, the Terminal-IDE community is fairly new and no one had yet created a community. So, I did. You can now find: A Web Site where there may one day be a wiki (help needed - can YOU help set up a Wiki? ). An email list to join to ask and answer questions. This list has a searchable archive. A new Blog-Site. And, at least one new contribution of code to help user's out. It's called Resolver . Happy? Give it a thumb's up! | Terminal-IDE: Is there a working wiki somewhere to discuss issues unique to this environment? | android |
I have a Phone with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and I am trying to synchronize my calendar with my Google account. The problem is, that sync only works one-way. Data from Google are transferred to my phone, but events from my mobile calendar don't upload to Google account. I tried various settings but I am obviously missing something. How can I fix this? | I fixed by giving the mobile calendar the same name as its called on Google... | Android sync with calendar works only one-way | android |
How can I connect my Android devices (2.3.3 and 4.0) to VPN setup in Ubuntu Linux? | Look under Settings > Wireless & Networks. You should see a VPN option. Assuming you already have a VPN server running on your Ubuntu machine, it should be pretty self-explanatory from there | Connect to Ubuntu Linux VPN | android |
I want to use only the lock screen from another rom for the same phone. I own Micromax A52. And I am using Xzoom v3 as my rom with Dark Angel theme.(to be precise if anyone knows and if it matters :P) But i want to use the lock screen from another rom 'SuperStock52' which is also a rom for the same device. How can i port that lock screen to my rom? | Unless the lock screen is some kind of 3rd party app (like GO Locker ), then I believe you would have to modify the ROM yourself, and port the lock screen over manually, into your 'new' ROM. - In which case you might be better off asking for advice over at XDA , or another developer forum. If it is some kind of 3rd party app, chances are you can download & install it from the Play store, or download the APK online from the developer's website. EDIT: Rereading your question it's occured to me you might actually be asking how to port over the lock screen (IE: which files to modify in the ROM) - in which case, you should probably go to XDA (see above link) and ask for advice. | How do i use a lockscreen from another rom | android |
Using the keyboard in Cyanogenmod, sometimes while typing in a sentence, I see a point where I would like to make an edit. Presently, I do this by touching with my finger where I want the insertion point to be, however, it is hard to get the exact location, often I miss it by one or two characters. In such cases, instead of trying again and again until I get it right (which is most difficult to position right at the beginning of the text) is there a way to advance the cursor forward of backwards by one position somehow? In other words, on a computer, I would press the forward or backward arrow keys to move one position, is there something like that in the keyboard? | As mentioned in comments, when you tap some text to set the insertion point you should get a blue indicator "tab" just below where the cursor has been placed. It is usually then fairly easy to drag this "tab" (and corresponding cursor) a couple of characters to the correct position. Unfortunately, unlike some other keyboards, the stock Android keyboard does not have arrow keys. | In my keyboard, is there a way to advance or backup the insertion point? | android |
Google Keep on Android seems to convert arbitrary numeric data into clickable phone numbers. Any sequence of 5 or more digits, with differing punctuation seems to trigger it. I seem to have triggered this a lot so far and not once have I actually typed a phone number! This is proving to be quite problematic. The hypertext'd numbers are too easy to tap, particularly when you are going back to edit that text, which then transports you away to the dialer! Most annoying. Is there any way to prevent the app from doing this? UPDATE: I installed the update to 1.0.79 today but there is no change in this behaviour yet. In fact I can't see that anything has changed with this update?! Possibly bug fixes I guess, but nothing new is listed in the official change log either?! However, this over zealous hyperlinking of numbers is more prevalent than I first thought... the default text messaging app does it as well - so I guess they share a common text-element? | Looks to be bad recognition by Google's code. :-/ Happens on mine as well and no setting can change it. Google is surprisingly receptive to feedback on its apps (a bug fix I reported made it into Google Music's update!), so two ways to get this fixed: Go to Keep's page and click "Email Developer" and write this up. Or, within Keep, Menu -> Send Feedback. | How to stop Google Keep from seeing numeric data as phone numbers? | android |
I have access to the IPv6 internet through Charter Communication's 6rd implementation. A number of CDNs fail to work correctly over IPv6, which causes a number of sites, including facebook, to have significant issues (pictures don't load, pages don't load, etc.) On my desktop, I can disable IPv6, and these issues go away. Is it possible to do that on a stock android phone / tablet? (not rooted) Edit: From the comments, I've learned that the actual issue is a MTU issue. So I'd be equally interested in a method to set a lower MTU on android as well. | Until Google does something about issue 1008 , (which seems unlikely since it's about five years old now) you're unlikely to get a better answer, but for what it's worth, this might help someone in a similar situation. At the moment you can't alter the MTU without root access to the device. In Linux this operation requires root, so on Android you either need to root the device, or Google needs to provide system functionality that applications can use to perform the operation (i.e. resolve issue 1008). There is an off-market program MTUchanger which can be used on rooted devices to change the MTU. If you can root your device you can sideload this and work around the issue. Of course, you should complain bitterly about Charter (and Rogers and the dozen or so other ISPs) deploying 6rd in 2013, when the rest of the world is moving past transition technologies and is doing native dual stack. 6rd is essentially ISP-private 6to4 tunnelling, which is why the MTU has to be lowered from 1500. As such, any company that deploys it is eventually going to have to do it again, and do it right. | How can I disable IPv6? | android |
I took a photosphere earlier today, and went to the gallery to wait for it to render. While it was rendering, I switched from landscape to portrait and the gallery app crashed. I'm now left with the pre-rendered, non-stitched images. Is there any way to force the gallery to re-render the photosphere? Or do I just have to re-take it? | No, there is no way to rerender a photosphere. It loses the original data after rendering. Even after crashes. | Is there any way to re-render a photosphere? | android |
I have strange troubles with installation CyanogenMod on HTC Sensation XE. Any version (I'v tried 9.0, 9.1, last nightly 10) show about the same errors. There are two classes of errors. First - /cache/dalvik-cache disappears. <code> E/dalvikvm( 315): Could not stat dex cache directory '/cache/dalvik-cache': Permission denied I/dalvikvm( 315): Unable to open or create cache for /system/framework/core.jar (/cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@core.jar@classes.dex) D/dalvikvm( 315): Unable to process classpath element '/system/framework/core.jar' E/dalvikvm( 315): Could not stat dex cache directory '/cache/dalvik-cache': Permission denied I/dalvikvm( 315): Unable to open or create cache for /system/framework/core-junit.jar (/cache/dalvik-cache/system@framework@core-junit.jar@classes.dex) D/dalvikvm( 315): Unable to process classpath element '/system/framework/core-junit.jar' </code> But I created /cache/dalvik-cache before run: <code> /cache # mkdir dalvik-cache /cache # chown system.cache dalvik-cache /cache # ls -la drwxrwx--- 5 system cache 4096 Mar 31 19:58 . drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 0 Mar 31 19:56 .. drwxrwxrwx 2 system cache 4096 Mar 31 19:58 dalvik-cache drwxrwx--- 2 root root 4096 Jan 1 1970 lost+found drwxrwx--- 2 system cache 4096 Mar 31 19:31 recovery /cache # </code> Second - dalvik waits unexacting jars: <code> D/dalvikvm( 112): DexOpt: --- END 'apache-xml.jar' (success) --- D/dalvikvm( 112): DEX prep '/system/framework/apache-xml.jar': unzip in 33ms, rewrite 964ms D/dalvikvm( 112): Unable to stat classpath element '/system/framework/HTCDev.jar' D/dalvikvm( 112): Unable to stat classpath element '/system/framework/HTCExtension.jar' D/dalvikvm( 112): Unable to stat classpath element '/system/framework/com.htc.framework.jar' D/dalvikvm( 112): DexOpt: --- BEGIN 'filterfw.jar' (bootstrap=1) --- D/dalvikvm( 245): DexOpt: load 12ms, verify+opt 88ms D/dalvikvm( 112): DexOpt: --- END 'filterfw.jar' (success) --- D/dalvikvm( 112): DEX prep '/system/framework/filterfw.jar': unzip in 8ms, rewrite 256ms D/dalvikvm( 112): Unable to stat classpath element '/system/framework/com.htc.android.bluetooth.jar' D/dalvikvm( 112): Unable to stat classpath element '/system/framework/wimax.jar' D/dalvikvm( 112): Unable to stat classpath element '/system/framework/com.orange.authentication.simcard.jar' </code> The full log is available here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/u1wpz8j7fskf17o/htc-cm.log Is there any ideas what to do? | Some HTC devices that are unlocked using htc-dev (rather than actually gaining S-Off) required to manually flash the boot.img that you extract from the ROM's zip using fastboot. <code> fastboot flash boot "c:\location\to\boot.img" </code> | CyanogenMod doesn't work on HTC Sensation XE | android |
I'm using a Galaxy Nexus with Android 4.2.2. I started using the baked in Swype imitation/gesture typing as soon as I found out it was there. However, the profanity filtering is extremely frustrating. It's way too liberal - it won't even recognize "sucks." I poked around a bit but can't find anywhere to disable it. Is this possible? | Just type it in once, click it, and save it. Done. You can also go to Settings > Language and Input > Personal Dictionary and add your words from there. | How can I disable profanity filtering of autocomplete suggestions? | android |
I have a Rezound on 4.03, and verizon has pushed an update to it today. I have delayed the install because there's little information about it. What little I have found claim it make the phone unstable. I made a nandroid backup, with the default options. That means: [Boot], [System], [data], and [cache] were selected. [recovery], [sd-ext], and [.android_secure] were not selected. My question is, if this OTA update does make my phone worse, will simply restoring the backup pretty much guarantee a seemless "undo"? Or is it possible the update could change something that I can't revert? | An update might include a new radio-firmware (see: stackexchange-url ("What is radio firmware?"); basically you can think of it as the "hardware-layer" or an API to give the installed (Android) system access to the hardware), which is not included with a Nandroid backup. It could also include a "recovery-image" (see: recovery-mode ), which you did not include with your backup. For the latter, you could simply include it with your Nandroid backup. The radio-image is a different thing: I know of no method to extract/backup it from a given device. You could, however, check which radio version is currently installed with your device, and see if you can get a "RUU" (Radio Unit Update) specifically for that. | Will a nandroid backup save me from a bad upgrade? | android |
It seems like I read something about how to do this once, but now I can't find it. I thought it was a feature of On{x} , but it doesn't look like the Galaxy S3 Driving Mode is exposed through their API. What I want is for my phone to automatically switch into Driving Mode when it detects I am moving faster than a certain speed (doesn't need to be immediate), and then when I am moving below that threshold switch back (again, after about a minute). | How about using NFC to tell the phone that it should switch itself to driving mode when inserted into the cradle? You can get nfc stickers for few euro/pounds on ebay..., put one to the back of the cradle, setup your phone and off you go :-) That probably isn't what you're looking for but still, it's nice and elegant solution ;-) | How do I have my Galaxy S3 automatically switch into Driving Mode when I am moving in a car? | android |
I installed <code> CWM </code> on my <code> Mele A1000 </code> and I was able to reboot into recovery mode using adb. At which point I got the <code> CWM </code> menu where I was able to install files from SD, wipe cache etc... After installing all the files ( <code> Cyanogen </code> ) I rebooted, now when the device starts all I see is the <code> Cyanogen </code> splash screen for a few minutes and then a message indicating: Encryption Unsuccessful. Encryption was interrupted and can't complete. As a result the data on your tablet is no longer accessible. To resume using your tablet, you must perform a factory reset. When you set up your tablet after the reset .... This message looks like it's part of the standard Android system. Since <code> CWM </code> is installed I should be able to access it in order to install something else, but I cannot figure out how to reboot in recovery/cwm mode. There is no hardware button other than the power button on the <code> Mele A1000 </code> | Once the encryption screen comes up, Android may have gotten far enough in the bootprocess for the adb server to start. If you have adb set up on the computer, check and see if the computer can recognize the phone by typing <code> adb devices </code> . If you see device with a serial number, then just simply type <code> adb reboot recovery </code> . (If you don't have adb, there are several guides that can be found via Google that explain how to get it set up.) | How to boot the Mele A1000 in recovery mode | android |
Right now if I click a maps link my phone asks if I want to open in Dolphin Google Maps (Standard/classic interface) Web I prefer using the Google " Navigation " application for its features, such as voice guidance and input. How do I get "Navigation" to appear in the list of available apps, or even better make it the default for any map link I click? | Select <code> Google Maps </code> as default and then you only need to select <code> Navigation </code> to open <code> Google Navigation </code> . | How to make "Navigator" my default mapping app? | android |
Just received jelly bean 4.1.2 on my Sprint Samsung galaxy s3. I have always used the 4x2 digital clock widget and I noticed a small icon that looks like a clock appearing just above the AM / PM...What if anything is the purpose of this? This also appears when displaying the weather for the various cities. Anyone have a clue? | Going by your description, you're referring to the object circled in this screenshot That thing indicates that the city the time is being shown for is currently running on daylight savings time. In this screenshot, we see that New York is observing daylight savings time, and Phoenix isn't. | on home screen what is small clock icon appearing just above AM/PM on 4x2 clock widget | android |
The latest Gmail app update (26 MAR 2013) introduced a feature for devices running Android 4.1 (Jellybean) and higher wherein a user could directly archive / reply to an email from within the notification pull down. The "What's New" section on the Play Store however also lists the ability to delete an email. Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and up: • Reply, archive or delete from notifications - no need to open the app I'm running CyanogenMod 10.1 (Android 4.2.2) on my Samsung S2 i9100 and the options for Archive and Reply show up when I pull down the individual email notification but nothing for Delete shows up, even while in Landscape mode. Any ideas on how this can be implemented or a setting that I've missed to enable this functionality? | Yes - there is a setting you need to change. The Notification bar's actions are based on what you have GMail set up to do when swiping away an email within the app. To change it from <code> Archive </code> : Open <code> Gmail </code> and go to <code> Settings </code> there change the <code> Swiping conversation list </code> from <code> Archive/unlabel/delete </code> to <code> Always delete </code> This changed my Notification bar action from <code> Archive </code> to <code> Delete </code> | How do I delete an email in Gmail from the notification screen? | android |
When I have flashed a new ROM, I have to download all the apps I need in google play one by one, which is very inconvenient absolutely. Some of you may recommend "Titanium Backup", but it will lead to some errors with my device sometimes. So I want to download all my apps using google play in one time, instead of downloading my apps one by one. That is, I want google play to download and install all the apps in my previous ROM automatically after I have flashed a new ROM, Is that possible? Better if you have some more convenient methods. Thanks for any help! | You have two options. Do a factory reset. Go to <code> Settings > Backup & reset > Factory data reset </code> . When you are asked to log-in your Google account, it will ask you if you want to download the apps you installed before. Usually, your paid apps will be installed (and possibly some of the free apps). You may have to manually install the others. Or, you can always use Titanium Backup. Make sure to back-up only user apps, not system apps. Then, restore those user apps after you have flashed a new ROM. | How to download all my apps in google play when I have flashed a new ROM? | android |