# Question
Title: Who are responsible for pushing out the OTA updates?
There are many parties involved in an Android phone. My question is who is responsible for the OTA updates of my phone. Is it the manufacturer, the phone service provider or Google?

I thought this answer could be answered generally but maybe not. My phone is the Galaxy Nexus i9250 witch is manufactured by Samsung.

# Answer
If your handset is Google Nexus, then yes, Google pushes out the OTA updates.

The rest is down to the carriers, depending on who you are with, what handset you have.

***Edit:*** Added more thought for clarity.

Some may not roll out the OTA updates, its all dependent on the market, region. I am with O2, and never get any OTA updates what-so-ever. Some manufacturers do include a 'PC companion' suite that accompanies the handset and it is through that pc companion suite, that there may be a "firmware" update that is independant of the carrier used. That would be an exception to the rule, although the trend seems to be, to "use the official manufacturer's handset companion software for Windows" and to check on that regularly.
> 5 votes

# Answer
The manufacturer is responsible for the Android updates (not only if it's an OTA Update).

**But** some carrier branded phones receive a different firmware as the unbranded ones because of custom carrier modifications, like removing the WiFi tether feature. Therefore a delay for an update can also be caused by the carrier. Usually you will see an update first on unbranded devices and *maybe* later for the carrier branded ones. But there have also been cases where the carrier released an update that wasn't released officially for unbranded devices (IIRC a Samsung device in the UK got 2.3 before it was officially released by Samsung).

To sum up: The main responsibility lies with the manufacturers but the carriers have a word to say too. Which is IMHO a bad thing, that's why I prefer unbranded devices.
> 4 votes

# Answer
With the Galaxy Nexus it's sometimes tricky to tell who is responsible for the updates. There are (at least) four different variants of the GSM/HSPA device and one CDMA device.

GSM/HSPA:

* `yakju`
* `takju`
* `yakjuxw`
* `yakjukr`

CDMA:

* `mysid`

There used to be an app in the Play Store which could tell if your updates come from Samsung or Google, but it's been removed for some reason. As far as I can tell, `yakju` and `takju` get the updates directly from Google, and other variants get them from Samsung or operators.

This is why I flashed my yakjuxw device with the takju ROM, no more delays from Samsung.
> 3 votes

# Answer
I like pretty pictures (visual learner) so I tried to combine the other answers into a generalized graphic:

If anyone has any issues with this, point them out in a comment and I will update accordingly.
> 3 votes

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Tags: updates, ota-update
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title: Double Security for Gmail

text:
# Question
Title: Double Security for Gmail
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!

# Answer
You could use an app locker like Smart App Protector. This will `protect your installed applications using a password or pattern`.
> 2 votes

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Tags: security, gmail, password
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title: Stop Applications Loading

text:
# Question
Title: Stop Applications Loading
How can I stop so many applications loading, and slowing down the system. When I clear the Ram I usually see that at least 16 applications have been running. What for?

# Answer
> 0 votes
There are many apps out there which will help you know which apps are running in background and hogging resources with extra features from stock task manager. Few of good apps are

**Elixir 2**-Application Monitoring Manager.

**Wake Lock Detector**-Tells you which apps are keeping your phone in partial awake or in full awake state.

**Advanced Task Manager**-Will help you manage running processes.

Stay away from task killer apps they are no good and drain out battery.

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Tags: task-management, auto-start
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# Question
Title: How to install cyanogenmod on LG P690 optimus net: how to know which ROM?
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?

# Answer
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.
> 1 votes

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Tags: 4.0-ice-cream-sandwich, cyanogenmod
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title: HTC Explorer wallpaper display problem

text:
# Question
Title: HTC Explorer wallpaper display problem
I have HTC Explorer, when I download a wallpaper from net and try to set it as wallpaper, the phone first asks me to crop it, so I crop it, but some portion from all the four sides of the cropped image is not displayed.

And now the main problem, the phone has 320x480 screen resolution, I have a wallpaper from net with the same resolution, but the phone still asks me to crop it, while cropping most of the times I have to let go the image from top and bottom, the horizontal part of the image is available but vertical part needs to be cropped.

More interestingly, I created a jpg file on ms paint on computer with 320x480 pix and transferred it to the phone, even then it asked me to crop it and after cropping when I saw the wallpaper to my surprise it was not what or how the original image was cropped.

can you guys help me, thanx in advance.

# Answer
> some portion from all the four sides of the cropped image is not displayed.

At least it seems so -- but that's perfectly normal ("works as designed"). Android does not think of it as a background image solely for the "recent homescreen", but rather for your "collection of homescreen pages". If you swipe through your homescreens left-to-right (or in the opposite direction), and watch the background image while doing so, you will notice it slightly sliding along. So the "left side" of your background image aligns with the left-most "page", while the "right side" does the same with the right-most page.

> the phone has 320x480 screen resolution, I have a wallpaper from net with the same resolution, but the phone still asks me to crop it

The reason for this hopefully became clear with above explanation. So generally spoken, you will need a picture with the actual *height* of your screen, but being *wider* than the actual screen width.
> 1 votes

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Tags: wallpaper
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# Question
Title: Stock email app does not include certain attachments when forwarding email
I am trying to forward an email with a powerpoint file attachment to a colleague in the company using the stock email app.

When I click forward , the paper clip shows up as though the attachment is being attached , however the recipient does not get the attachment.

I tried this with attached powerpoints that arrived from another company site over an encrypted email connection and it always fails to attach.

Other powerpoint files that I get from my gmail account always are included when I forward the emails.

So there is something unusual about these attachments that the stock Android email app cannot handle.

The kicker is that the same exact email can be forwarded with the attachment just fine using the iOS email app. I tried with my iOS phone which I also use from time to time. So it seems to be a OS specific issue .

# Answer
I'm sorry to tell you that Android's email forwarding function is broekn at least since 2009. Google is closing all bugreports and ignoring thisn problem. This kind of problem is easy to hide so those who don't an Android device won't know about it. And since fixing it won't bring in any money...there's no need to fix it.
> -1 votes

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Tags: stock-email-app
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# Question
Title: Formatting Android storage "zero out" technique
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?

# Answer
> 8 votes
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.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I can personally recommend free Forever Gone (SD Card Cleaner).

It is not paid app and it has:

* much better rating
* no suspicious permissions
* 100x times bigger user base
* often updates

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Tags: security, data-recovery
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# Question
Title: What's the purpose of "Emergency Call" button on SIM unlock screen?
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?

# Answer
> 8 votes
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.

# Answer
> 1 votes
With Emergency calls you can dial only Emergency numbers like 911 , 112 etc , they differ from country to country. And AFAIK in absence of a network/signal the emergency call is made using the available network of any network provider in region. So the main purpose of "Emergency Call" button is that when in emergency you can dial emergency numbers without unlocking your device .

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Tags: emergency-calls
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# Question
Title: How to hide the carrier name in status bar?
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?

# Answer
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 :)
> 3 votes

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Tags: notification-bar, carriers
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# Question
Title: How to adjust ringer volume while listening to music?
When listening to music on my phone (running Android 4.0.4 ICS), I am unable to adjust the ringer volume with the hardware volume controls. Pushing either of them adjusts the *music volume* and not the ringer volume.

If I hold down the power button, a menu appears that provides me with the choice of turning off the ringer completely, enabling vibrate-only mode, and restoring the ringer volume to its previous level. However, there appears to be no way to actually *adjust* the ringer volume level.

Am I missing something?

# Answer
> 2 votes
When an app is playing sound, Android will only adjust the volume for what is actively playing the sound (in this case the media volume). You can manually adjust your sound volume under Settings -\> Sound -\> Volume

If your ROM supports it, you may be able to enable expanded mode for volume under Settings -\> Sound -\> Volume Panel Style -\> Expandable. This will give you a button to the right of the onscreen volume indicator (when you press the volume buttons). Press that and it will show all the adjustable volume levels and you can change it through there.

# Answer
> 2 votes
If it cannot be done with native support (as described by bassmadrigal), there are several 3rd-party solutions available. Take a look at e.g. Slider Widget - Volumes, which seems a solution you might love:

Slider widget, second screenshot with open slider (source: Google Play; click images to enlarge)

As the screenshots show, it gives you a widget bar with "buttons" for all the different volumes your device supports. Tap the corresponding item once to bring up the slider. Or double-tap to toggle ("That's my favorite song -- no phone calls or notifications now, please! :)").

The playstore offers a lot of similar things, just check it for volume widget if this approach seems useful to you.

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Tags: volume-control
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# Question
Title: Personal data (contacts, sms, phone logs, settings, etc) gone after moving apps to a new microSD
I've just bought a 16gb Sandisk microSD and I moved some apps to that by using the functionality available under `Settings > Applications > Manage Applications`. 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.

# Answer
As the already correctly suggests, the description makes quite clear that such happened. A factory-reset "deletes" everything from your -- 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 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 tag explaining this in more detail, see e.g.

Btw: With all other data on , 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 , which might have been triggered either via your company (if you're accessing their server via , and thus accepted the corresponding ) -- or the previous owner (if any) having set up some anti-theft app, and now pulled the trigger on you...
> 0 votes

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Tags: 2.3-gingerbread, contacts, external-sd, factory-reset, data-recovery
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# Question
Title: Micro SDHC card won't mount on Sylvania SYNET7LP-DS
My new Class 4 PNY 16GB Micro SDHC card won't mount on my Sylvania SYNET7LP-DS 32GB Extended storage Froyo (2.20) Tablet. This is the second new card I returned, and still won't mount. When I press the `Mount SD` option, it says `Memory Device Safe To Remove`.

I should also note that the `Format SD Card` option is not showing up on the Tablet at all. I mean it's not there in grey or anything.

Can someone help me?

# Answer
I also have the same tablet. I just installed a 32Gb micro sdhc and it worked right off the bat. It came pre-formatted, I installed it with power off, and on power up it was recognized and mounted. Polaroid 32 GB CL10 micro SDHC Flash Memory Cards for Tablet PCs and Smartphones (P-SDU32G10-EFPOL)
> 0 votes

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Tags: 2.2-froyo, external-sd, sd-card, mount
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title: Galaxy Nexus call freezing

text:
# Question
Title: Galaxy Nexus call freezing
I've bought **two** Galaxy Nexus phones about a month and a half ago. I'm experiencing phone freezing on calls on both hence I doubt it has anything to do with the phone but rather with software.

## When does the phone freeze

1. **Someone calls me.**

1. I drag to green to initiate the phone call
    2. Display changes to *in-call mode* which displays the big red *stop the call* button
    3. Phone freezes
2. **I try calling someone.**

1. I open contacts
    2. Select a contact and phone number
    3. The moment I select Phone calling app (because I also have Skype and it asks me which one to use)
    4. Phone freezes

I tried un-installing Skype but there was no difference.

## Other possible candidates

I haven't tested thoroughly but I suspect if I have a phone number in my contacts saved with spaces (or whatever that blank button on contact number keyboard is - could be some dialling pause maybe?) my phone freezes. When I removed spaces I usually was able to make a call. But I haven't tested this thoroughly and am not 100% sure of it.

I should point out that freezing doesn't happen on every call. It's sporadic but often enough to be extremely annoying. Makes me look ridiculous in the eyes of others what kind a phone I'm using.

As I read on the web others are having same freezing issues on their Nexus phones. Some indicate it may be a problem with battery status info reporting back to phone hence battery removal solves the issue for a day... But this problem has apparently been present for almost 2 years and it seems to be related to OS without any relation to installed apps.

It's interesting/sad/worrying that something primarily supposed to be a phone became incapable of being one. :)

### Info

* unlocked Galaxy Nexus bought on Amazon.de
* non-rooted Jelly Bean 4.1.2
* UI language is English (UK)

# Answer
> 0 votes
As per users it seems that the only *official* thing to do is to change mainboard that's somewhat faulty on this C8 series. Service centre should handle such situation.

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Tags: samsung-galaxy-nexus, 4.1-jelly-bean, calls
---


# Question
Title: What kind of power saving smarts does Android already have?
I just d/l tasker and it's been really interesting (although not as interesting as I would've liked since I feel a lot of the good features require a root).

I would like to optimize my Galaxy s3 so that it uses less battery power in a way that has minimal effect on my usage.

I have a few suggestions but they seem fairly obvious things so I'm not sure if they are already implemented in the OS and I don't need to create a tasker profile for it.

* Turn off 3G when I've got WIFI on. I only need the mobile networks for phone calls when I've got wifi so I would prefer not to have 3G on.
* Turn off 3G if i'm in a low signal area - I hear if you're on the edge of 3G connectivity, it'll use lots of power constantly connecting to 3G. Does android have a way to stop that from running the battery down or should I create a tasker profile for it?
* Power saving mode on when the screen isn't on. There isn't much the phone needs to do when I'm not using it so are there already processes built into android to turn the CPU down etc. or do I need to create a Tasker profile for it? It can chew up to 25% of my battery life overnight sometimes.

Anyway, do any of those profiles seem worthwhile to do or are they already built in features of android?

# Answer
> 7 votes
> Turn off 3G when I've got WIFI on. I only need the mobile networks for phone calls when I've got wifi so I would prefer not to have 3G on.

3G and mobile data are two separate things. When wifi is enabled, mobile data no longer goes through the cellular connection, but it does remain connected to the 3G network (otherwise it couldn't receive calls or SMS/MMS). I know older versions of CyanogenMod included a highly customizable Power Control widget that had options that when wifi is enabled (not necessarily connected), it switches to 2G/EDGE. But there are some downsides with this. Switching from 2G to 3G (and vice versa) require completely losing phone signal as it shuts down the connection and then searches for the other network. In doing this, you are probably looking at at least 30 seconds of being without a signal when this occurs. One very bad thing I can see with this is if you are on a phone call when you enter or leave a wireless network, it will most likely get disconnected and you won't be able to call them back until you are reconnected. In my experience, switching to 2G-only really isn't as big of a battery saver as it was a few years ago. 3G modems have gotten a lot better with power consumption.

> Turn off 3G if i'm in a low signal area - I hear if you're on the edge of 3G connectivity, it'll use lots of power constantly connecting to 3G. Does android have a way to stop that from running the battery down or should I create a tasker profile for it?

You can adjust the preferred networks under the Phone Information section, which can be accessed by typing the following into your dialer `*#*#4636#*#*` and then going down to the Set Preferred Network Type section. Most likely your phone is on WCMDA Preferred. This seeks out a 3G/HSPA signal and tries to keep it active and only falls back when the signal is really poor. If I remember right, you can set it to GSM/CDMA Auto (PRL) and it will pick the one with the best signal. But I read this a while back and haven't been able to find the reference again.

> Power saving mode on when the screen isn't on. There isn't much the phone needs to do when I'm not using it so are there already processes built into android to turn the CPU down etc. or do I need to create a Tasker profile for it? It can chew up to 25% of my battery life overnight sometimes.

Samsung is the only device that I know of that includes a Power Saving Mode. Android is actually pretty good about being easy on the battery, but apps that we install are typically the culprits of our poor battery life. A device should be in Deep Sleep mode well over half the time it is off the charger (I tend to notice mine around 65%-75% Deep Sleep). This can be checked using CPU Stats. Unfortunately, to get more information about what is causing your problems, you most likely need root. The app I typically recommend to people on the CyanogenMod forum is BetterBatteryStats (which is free on xda for memebers). This will actually tell you exactly what in an app is keeping the device from entering deep sleep. This app may still have some functionality without root, but I've never tested it (I always put a custom ROM on my phone, so I am never using it long without root).

Finding out what apps are keeping your phone from entering Android's low power "Deep Sleep" when the screen is off will save you more on battery than Samsung's Power Saving Mode probably could.

As I mentioned above, Android already does a great job with trying to minimize power consumption. All phones support CPU stepping, which basically will lower the speed of your processor in various steps until it enters the deep sleep mode. The range of the processor speeds vary from device and kernel (3rd-party custom kernels can modify quite a bit). When the screen is turned off, Android automatically tries to enter deep sleep mode. The only way this doesn't happen is if something is holding a wakelock. A wakelock is designed to allow an app to finish something before entering the low power state. This could be anything from sending a text message, to being on a phone call, to syncing email. Ideally, these should only hold wakelocks for as long as needed, but occasionally they get buggy. This is where the above app I mention comes into play. It can determine what apps are holding those wakelocks, and if they are excessive, you can check the settings of the app to try and minimize it or try uninstalling/reinstalling the app to see if it is a glitch or corrupted somehow.

The other option comes with rooting and custom kernels. I give this only as general information. With custom kernels, they can significantly change how the processor operates. Everything from lowering the max speed of the processor, to actually sending less voltage to the processor, to severely limiting how high of speed the processor can get while the screen is off. This is part of the reason why a lot of people run custom kernels. The battery savings from undervolting the processor can be quite substantial. Also, when running a custom ROM, you can remove a lot of the bloat that carriers and/or manufacturers add to the ROM, all of which can increase battery consumption.

That being said, if you are noticing certain apps are using a large amount of battery or hold large wakelocks, but they are system apps, with newer versions of Android, you can still disable those apps (even if you can't remove them). You can do this under Settings -\> Apps -\> All -\> App name -\> Disable. If you want to reenable it, it can be found at the bottom of the list alphabetized with all other disabled apps (if any).

# Answer
> 2 votes
> Turn off 3G when I've got WIFI on. I only need the mobile networks for phone calls when I've got wifi so I would prefer not to have 3G on.

Already done by default, unless you use certain apps that try to force 3G when WiFi is on. (Certain older versions of Skype come to mind.) Though you might want to check the advanced options in Wifi to see if WiFi sleep policy is set to "Never", since it'll revert to 3G when the phone is asleep elsewise.

> Turn off 3G if i'm in a low signal area - I hear if you're on the edge of 3G connectivity, it'll use lots of power constantly connecting to 3G. Does android have a way to stop that from running the battery down or should I create a tasker profile for it?

Knock yourself out on that one. But you might want to consider how you'll know when to turn 3G back on.

> Power saving mode on when the screen isn't on. There isn't much the phone needs to do when I'm not using it so are there already processes built into android to turn the CPU down etc. or do I need to create a Tasker profile for it? It can chew up to 25% of my battery life overnight sometimes.

First: why do you not plug your phone in at night? Second, this varies on a phone-by-phone basis.

# Answer
> 0 votes
I wouldn't bother with any of those optimisations, mostly for the reasons that others have already stated.

Optimisations I **do** use (with Llama, but I'm sure they're just as easy to do in Tasker):

* Turn off WiFi when not at home. Otherwise it will use power looking for WiFi hotspots you won't use.
* Turn off sync when at low power, and turn it on again when charging.

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Tags: samsung-galaxy-s-3, 4.1-jelly-bean, battery-life, tasker
---


# Question
Title: How can I share directions/route from Google Maps App?
In the web based version of Google Maps it is possible to create a link to a set of directions between two places and send it to a friend in an email or instant message. For example I can send someone a link to show them some walking directions.

Is it possible to create a link similar to this in the Google Maps App for Android?

I know how to create the route with the directions in the Maps app. I just don't see any way to share it - for example by E-Mail or SMS. I'd also like that the resulting link will work on a non-Android phone, if possible.

# Answer
> 8 votes
I have not been able to find out how to do that either. However, I have found you can share places by clicking on them and then selecting "Share this place."

# Answer
> 4 votes
Unfortunately, there is no way to create these links in the Google Maps app.

# Answer
> 2 votes
As of the date of this posting you can not do this in the android app. HOWEVER you can access it through Google maps website. So instead of using your app navigate to Google maps through your browser. It will take a bit longer to load so only do this if you have to share the map or directions. Seems like a natural to be able to share this function via sms to non smart phones. It equals free advertising for Google. I hope they add this soon to the mobile app!

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Tags: google-maps
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# Question
Title: Android GTalk, Chromium Gtalk, Gmail Gtalk - how can i send files such as image, music, video clips like whatsApp?
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 ??

# Answer
> 1 votes
The rumored Google Babel may be the solution you are looking for. Hopefully it will be announced/released before or at Google I/O.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Google Talk doesn't have any of those features. It's meant as a complement to Gmail, and it's intended that if you want to send files or persistent things to your chat partner, you'd email them.

If you want a chat system that has all the features of WhatsApp, why not just use WhatsApp?

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Tags: file-transfer, google-talk, whatsapp-messenger, chat
---


# Question
Title: Nexus 4: Lost superuser rights after an update to 4.2.1 - how can I get them back?
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!

# Answer
> 5 votes
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:

1. Download a custom recovery, like ClockworkMod, and save it to your computer
2. Download the Superuser/su package for ARM and copy it to your phone
3. Reboot into your bootloader, either by holding `Volume Down` while turning on your device or by issuing `adb reboot bootloader` from a PC (plugged in via USB with debugging enabled on the phone)
4. Use the `fastboot` utility to install the recovery image from your PC via:

```
fastboot flash recovery /path/to/recovery.img

```
5. Reboot into recovery (boot into your bootloader, then press either of the volume buttons to cycle to "Recovery" and press power).
6. Install the the Superuser zip file from your recovery menu
7. 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 `/system` 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.

---
Tags: rooting, superuser
---


title: Backing up Viber chat logs

text:
# Question
Title: Backing up Viber chat logs
I have a rooted Samsung Galaxy S2 with GB Samsung firmware, I have updated Viber through Google Play and now it won't even start. It gives me a crash error dialog and closes without even starting the UI. I've read the solution for this issue is to reinstall Viber, but it would also mean that all my chat history will be deleted, and I want to that. How do I backup and restore ONLY the chat in Viber?

# Answer
As your phone is rooted, you could use Titanium Backup to backup app *and* data. Then uninstall Viber, re-install it, check if it works, and use TB again to restore only the data.

Keep in mind that when a mis-configuration is the cause of your problem, after restoring the app's data your problem might be back. In that case, simply repeat the operation, but do *not* restore the data, if you want the app working again. Of course, in that case your chat history would be lost; but you might be able to manually pick the data from *TiBu's* backups.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: backup, viber-messenger
---


title: Is there a way to disable voice search?

text:
# Question
Title: Is there a way to disable voice search?
Since updating to Jelly Bean, my Nexus S had a problem with voice search starting up all the time (about every 30 secs).

Is there any way to disable it?

# Answer
> 8 votes
far easier, folks:

```
settings > language & input > keyboard & input methods: DISABLE 'google voice typing'

```

# Answer
> 3 votes
In ICS, to disable an app you can go to Settings -\> Apps -\> All tabs -\> click the app name and click "Disable". I assume its same for JB as well.

# Answer
> 2 votes
You can go to settings-\> applications and choose "all" tab to see the list of all apps and services. Scroll down to the end and choose voice search, which brings you an option to stop the service.

If your device is rooted, you can go one more step ahead and even uninstall the voice search app. In that case, you may need to have app like Link2SD.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Go to the "Applications" in settings menu. Find the 'voice search' and then long press until you get an option for app info. Then you will have two choices: one is **force stop** and the other is **disable**. If you choose disable, it will say that by disabling this may cause some apps not to work properly but so far my apps have been working.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Go to *Settings→Application Manager→All*, scroll down to *Google Text to Speech*, and *Clear data and disable*. Also you can uncheck *Show Notifications*.

If you like, you can install "Jeanny" (wich is pretty cool too) and then install "SVOX English Grace Voice" or "IVONA Text to Speech HQ" to make her talk. Good luck!

# Answer
> 0 votes
For completeness, I add that on the Galaxy S3, it can be located at Application Manager\All\com.google.android.voicesearch.

I brought up the AppInfo, Force stop, then Disabled it.

---
Tags: 4.1-jelly-bean, google-voice-actions
---


# Question
Title: Nexus 4 does not ring for calls on google talk or viper when screen is locked
Nexus 4 does not ring for calls on google talk or viper when screen is locked. Directly when the screen is unlocked, I see the caller calling, even if he already long time ago stopped ringing!

The Nexus 4 is running 4.2.2.

# Answer
So after some search and posting on some other forums, it turns out that it is a bug.
I'm quoting here from Rizy7 @ Android central forums:

"Known problem with Nexus 4 WiFi.. Google have been made aware but nothing has happened so far.. Hopefully in the next update it will be fixed. To get around the problem you either need to get a new router, set a static arp on your router or you need to change some system files which means you need a rooted device."

Source : http://forums.androidcentral.com/google-nexus-4/267885-nexus4-wont-ring-when-calling-google-talk-screen-locked.html#post2699201
> 1 votes

---
Tags: calls, 4.2-jelly-bean, nexus-4, google-talk
---


# Question
Title: How does the Nexus 4 rotating circular camera control work?
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?

# Answer
This is a new feature as of Android 4.2. It serves two purposes:

1. To focus your camera on what you click on
2. 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.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: 4.2-jelly-bean, camera, nexus-4
---


# Question
Title: Using a separate account for Play Store purchases
My family own a number of Android devices. We each have our own google account but ther is no credit-card linked to any of them. I'd like to keep it that way. But occasionally, I'd like to buy an app, but I can't as there is no way to pay without registering a credit card. At least with iPhones, I can use a gift card, but they don't seem to be available for android.

Is there a way that I can create a new account and link it to a credit card and whenever one of the family wants to purchase an app, sign on to the app-store with this account, buy the app, and sign out again. Will the app still work on the phone if the current user is not account that bought the app?

**Edit:** Here's the Play-Store "Accounts" dialog showing no "Add" option.

# Answer
> 1 votes
You should be able to add another account in Google Play on the devices that can be used for purchasing and downloading apps. You can even set a pin for it. With the Google Play Store open:

1. Tap the settings button in the upper right-hand corner
2. Tap Accounts
3. Tap Add account and then OK
4. Go through the account setup and now you should be able to select that account to purchase and download apps.

---
Tags: google-play-store, google-account, in-app-purchase
---


# Question
Title: Are all Xperia Play Optimized games compatible with the Xperia Z/ZL's native DualShock 3 support?
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 (, ). 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?

# Answer
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)
> 0 votes

---
Tags: applications, sony-xperia-z, sony-ericsson-xperia-play
---


# Question
Title: Why are android devices equipped with only (relatively) little RAM?
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.

# Answer
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).
> 12 votes

---
Tags: hardware, ram
---


# Question
Title: Applications forget setting in every boot
I have an android tablet with ICS version. The model is not popular. The brand is something like a Greek bestbuy.com shop. But the hardware is enough good. Nvidia tegra 3, good resolution and ram.

My problem is that when I don't use the tablet I shut it down. But then I reopen it some apps don't remember my login credentials or other settings. These apps is facebook, Microsoft OneNote, Tasks for MS exchange, Skydrive or Skype.

What kind of problem is that? I mean is a application bug, android or model bug?

# Answer
It could be a manufacturing fault in your particular tablet, but it sounds more likely to be an error in that model. Perhaps the system integrator didn't put applications' data on non-volatile storage, or screwed up the shutdown sequence. If this is the case, updating the system *may* fix the problem. Check with the manufacturer.

If you edit your question to include the make model name of the tablet, you may find someone else who has one and can help.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: applications
---


# Question
Title: Can't update Nexus S. Stuck at "waiting for download"
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.

# Answer
Restarting your phone should resolve the issue.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: updates, samsung-nexus-s, 4.2-jelly-bean
---


# Question
Title: Uninstalling app from specific device only
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.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Yes, they have separate lists - you can uninstall from the tablet or phone without affecting the other device.

# Answer
> 2 votes
You can also use your web browser from your computer and go to the My Apps section of *Google Play*. Here you can select the device you want to remove the app from, and click the trashcan icon next to it. This will uninstall the app from that device only.

Trashcan icon to uninstall an app from the selected device

---
Tags: applications, uninstallation
---


# Question
Title: How to backup original firmware and personal data before firmware change?
Before I try a custom-built firmware, I would like to backup the original one from my 2.1 SE Xperia phone. I know some original firmwares are out there to download but I would trust my own one better. How can the original firmware be backed up?

# Answer
Please check the tag wiki, which already gives you some "first-aid" advice. Take a closer look at the *Nandroid* section, as that is what you will need:

First, you will need to install a custom recovery (see e.g. ). The most common choice here is , as it is available for most devices. Depending on your device, there might be other choices available. For your Xperia, there probably is no Amon Ra Recovery (which is very similar to already mentioned *ClockworkMod* recovery), but there might be e.g. . This custom recovery will replace your stock-recovery, and add some useful functionality -- one of the new features being backups. Your will remain untouched when you flash the custom recovery.

Once you've installed the custom recovery, you can boot into it with a special combination of keys. On most devices, you need to hold the `Vol -` and `Power` keys pressed simultaneously on boot, until the recovery menu appears -- but that key combination might differ for your device (and the custom recovery chosen). Check the documentation/readme/hints where you downloaded your recovery.

Bootet into the recovery, there will be a menu item for backup (it may be labeled "Backup" or "Nandroid" or "Nandroid Backup", but you will unmistakenly identify it). Here you can create (or restore) a backup, which includes an image for each of your device's partitions (i.e. all that would be touched/changed when flashing another ; it will, however, *not* backup/restore your device's ).

Examples of ClockworkMod (source: XDA, LaptoppMag)

The screenshots show you the ClockworkMod menu of two different versions (I marked the entry you will need to create/restore backups). The first screenshot shows a complete Nandroid backup being made, and you can see in the light-gray test all the "Backing up" lines, indicating each backed-up partition.

Having created such a *Nandroid Backup*, you can return to this state of your anytime. It would also include your apps and data; so if you don't like the custom ROM you've tried, simply boot into your custom recovery, and restore your backup.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: backup, 2.1-eclair, device-firmware
---


# Question
Title: Although I have enough the available storage does not match it
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?

# Answer
> 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:

The 25 GB you see are those from the aka `/data`.

This answer only covers the first part of your question. For the second part, we need some more details.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: insufficient-memory
---


# Question
Title: How to store data on internal memory on LG Optimus 4X HD
After first use of LG optimus 4x HD I set storing of photo and video files on a SD card. Now I want this files to be saved back on internal memory.But I can't find where I did this setting. Please help me.

# Answer
Easy to do:

1. open the camera app
2. in the upper left you see a "gear" icon. Tapping it opens a drop-down. Do so.
3. scroll a little down. The third-to-last item reads "Storage" (has a SDCard icon). Tap it.
4. in the new overlay, select your wanted storage from "SDcard" or "Internal storage"

Done :)
> 0 votes

---
Tags: 4.0-ice-cream-sandwich, camera, storage
---


# Question
Title: mounting google nexus s on linux at fastboot mode screen
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 `root` 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

```
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

```

log from an unsuccessful usb mount during `fastboot` mode

```
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

```

`fastboot` unlock software waiting for the phone

```
~/android/nexussrootICS$ ./fastboot-linux oem unlock
< waiting for device >

```

Can someone suggest how could I mount (manual/automatic)? Thanks

# Answer
> 0 votes
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 `fastboot` as root user, e.g. `sudo fastboot devices` or `sudo fastboot-linux oem unlock`.

---

If that does not solve your issue, it might help to take a look at the steps necessary to use the `adb` command line utility: For `adb` to detect your device, you need to have setup a corresponding entry in your `/etc/udev/rules.d`. First run `lsusb` to check how the device identifies itself to the system. These data you can also take from your above quoted log: `idVendor=18d1, idProduct=4e20` is the information we need. Now, the corresponding entry in `/etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules` should look like:

```
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="18d1", ATTRS{idProduct}=="4e20", MODE="0666" GROUP="androiddev", SYMLINK+="android%n"

```

Save the file, and reload the `udev` service (`service udev reload`). Re-connect your device. Now `adb` (or, in your case, `fastboot`) should be able to find it. You can check that using the command `adb devices` (or `fastboot devices`), which now should list your *Nexus S*.

---
Tags: 4.1-jelly-bean, usb, fastboot, mount
---


# Question
Title: How to set default action handler permanently?
I've set defaults apps for many actions like sending email, opening PDFs, opening webpages etc. But, when I install or update an app which could handle that action, this default is cleared (even if default app is updated).

Nobody has problem with this because they can tick default checkbox on next action. My problem: I use Tasker to automate high amount of actions. And, due to this default removals (after automatic update), my tasks are stuck at `Choose App` pop-up. Tasks need to be completed in time. So, I face many real-world problems due to this.

What should I do to preserve defaults after automatic app update. Please, don't answer `You can't` or `Turn off Automatic Update`.

# Answer
AFAIK, defaults on Android is not preserved if apps that use the intent are changed.

# Workaround:

Use **intent** to launch the application or its activity screen.

**intent** is comparatively reliable though it may be changed when app is updated.

Take sending email as an example

1. Install Intent Intercept (Google Play)
2. Clear the defaults of email client
3. Choose "Intent Intercept" in Share menu when sending email
4. Copy intent details of your desired application activity
5. Open Tasker to "Create Task": Misc \> **Send Intent**
6. Edit the parameters (Usually fill in the Action and Extra is enough)

Ref: http://tasker.dinglisch.net/userguide/en/intents.html

P.S. Some famous companies even provide you the intent details on their developer website, such as Evernote.
> 6 votes

---
Tags: default-applications
---


# Question
Title: If I root a Droid ( Razr M) does it get factory reset (erasing all installed apps, etc.)?
I'm considering rooting my Razr M.

If I do that but don't install an alternate ROM, will this erase anything on my phone or simply "unlock it"?

# Answer
If you need to unlock the bootloader first (I could not find that in the instructions; you might check the script for the term `oem unlock`, usually done via `fastboot`), this includes a , which would mean "all clean up delete", i.e. all data and your self-installed apps would be gone.

Otherwise, if no bootloader-unlock is involved, the rooting process itself would usually not delete anything.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: rooting, motorola-droid-razr
---


# Question
Title: If you root a phone can you still get the upgrades to to the O/S?
If I root my Motorola Droid Razr M, can I still get O/S upgrades? If so, will they just happen automatically? Or do I need to install them (and if so where might I find instructions for that) ?

# Answer
Whether you still can update to "official versions" via or otherwise, depends on multiple things. Basically, the manufacturer might include a check whether the currently installed ROM is valid -- in this case, an update will fail as you changed the `/system` partition during . If no such check takes place, an update might succeed -- but you *may* have lost access (if the update replaced the `/system` partition; tools like OTA RootKeeper might prove helpful in those cases).

For further details, please see e.g.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: updates, rooting, motorola-droid-razr
---


# Question
Title: Where is current wallpaper stored on Jellybean?
On my Nexus S running 4.1.1, I am unable to find where the current wallpaper is stored. I referred to Where is the background image saved?, but my `/data/data/com.android.settings/files` folder is empty (I do have my file browser showing hidden files). It was confirmed in that question that ICS stored it in that location, but did Jellybean move it to a different place?

# Answer
> 21 votes
The wallpaper was in

```
data/data/com.android.settings/files/

```

on previous versions of Android. However it appears that it was moved as part of the multi-user preparations. The current location is

```
data/system/users/0/

```

The file is conveniently called wallpaper and it is a png file.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I have been trying to retrieve the wallpaper as well but found it too difficult. So to solve this I have create the app "Wallpaper Saver". It automatically saves your wallpapers and makes it easy to restore an old wallpaper again. It also supports live wallpapers. It is free to use. You can download it from Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.alroe.apps.WallpaperSaverFree

---
Tags: samsung-nexus-s, 4.1-jelly-bean, wallpaper
---


# Question
Title: Can't locate wallpaper when saved from browser
I have read multiple questions on here but none seem to work for my phone.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 with Android 2.3.3.

I really need the photo that's my wallpaper. I can't locate it on the phone or the location on the Internet.

Background info: I was browsing the Internet on my phone. I clicked on a photo on a website and clicked "set as wallpaper", which it did. Now however I can't find the photo anywhere on my phone. (It is still set as my wallpaper though.)

# Answer
> 3 votes
Most Android phones come with an app called "Downloads" where you can find any file you may have downloaded from the internet. From there, you should be able to view the picture and set it as your background through the `Menu` key settings.

Another way might be to look in your `Gallery` application (or any photo viewer). Most of these will display the Downloads folder (or any folder that holds image files), where you can view the image and set it as your background.

Worst case scenario, I'd look in your browser settings to see if you can find a folder path for where it is saving downloaded information (again, ususally `/sdcard/downloads`) and use a file manager (like X-plore) to find and open the file, where you will be able to set it as your wallpaper.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I developed "Wallpaper Saver" to save wallpapers when I have thrown away the original. Get it from Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.alroe.apps.WallpaperSaverFree

---
Tags: wallpaper
---


title: Installing BusyBox crashes phone

text:
# Question
Title: Installing BusyBox crashes phone
I'm trying to install BusyBox on my rooted stock Droid DNA.

Every time I try the normal install, it fails saying that the program can't be installed in `/system/bin`. If I do the smart install, it crashes and restarts the phone.

Anything I can do to make it work?

**Edit** so I looked through the busybox applet manager and about 20-30% are installed/symlinked by the smart install before it crashed the phone. I don't know if this is going to make a difference.

Also, would I be better off not doing it this way and installing through clockwork mod or adb?

# Answer
I ended up getting it to work by using ES File Explorer to mount system as writeable. I did a NAndroid backup first in case I needed to start over again, but after mounting system, it appears that it installed like it is supposed to.
> 0 votes

# Answer
I too have a HTC DNA but did not want to root my phone so I just did it the "non-root" way with https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=burrows.apps.busybox.

This way I am not voiding any boot-loaders or warranties.

```
Required:
✔ Android Terminal Emulator Application
After having a rooted phone for years, I know that there are plenty of applications that allow users to customize their phones; however, when I recently bought a brand new phone this year, I decided not to root it and I realized the main reason for rooting my phone was simply to obtain more linux tools. I made this simple application in order to help users simply install BusyBox without the hassle of being rooted!
All binaries are installed in: /data/data/burrows.apps.busybox/app_busybox/
In Terminal Emulator, Preferences: Initial command: export PATH=$PATH:/data/data/burrows.apps.busybox/app_busybox/
Provided extra Binaries:
✔ add-property-tag
✔ backup
✔ bash
✔ btool
✔ check-lost+found
✔ dexdump
✔ drm1_func_test
✔ hcidump
✔ hcitool
✔ iwmulticall
✔ latencytop
✔ librank
✔ micro_bench
✔ multitouch
✔ nano
✔ opcontrol
✔ openvpn
✔ oprofiled
✔ procmem
✔ procrank
✔ rawbu
✔ run_backup
✔ run_restore
✔ sane_schedstat
✔ scheduler
✔ scp
✔ showmap
✔ showslab
✔ sqlite3
✔ ssh
✔ ssmgrd
✔ strace
How to use BusyBox Non-root:
✔ Step 1: Click on "Install" to install BusyBox
✔ Step 2: Open your Terminal and change directory to the path!
Permissions requested:
✔ Internet: Download BusyBox (make sure you are on WiFi!)
✔ Script: Add PATH to Terminal

```

Regards,
> 1 votes

# Answer
You should check the following:

1. Check that `/system` is mounted as read-write. You can either check the mount filesystem or just try to copy a file with a root explorer to it.
2. Check that `/system` filesystem is not full and you have enough space.

As for the install, I would use the smart install in this case, since it won't overwrite all commands present in your ROM. If you find you still can't install it on `/system/bin` you could try to install it in `/system/xbin`.

If you find that `/system` is mounted in read only and you can't install it with that app, then you should install busybox from a flashable zip through recovery.
> 0 votes

# Answer
What is your version? Because version 9.0 a had bug which crashed the mobile it seems. He fixed it in 9.1 and it got to play store on January 29th.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: installation, crashes, busybox
---


# Question
Title: Error when trying to use adb shell in recovery mode
I have a Chinese phone which I've been unable to install ClockworkMod on. I decided to try booting into recovery mode to manually backup/restore the system partition.

However, if I plug my phone into my PC while it's in recovery mode and issue the command

```
adb shell

```

it says:

```
exec '/system/bin/sh' failed: No such file or directory (2)

```

I can only do very limited tasks, like `adb ls /` to see the filesystem, but nothing else.

How can I get adb shell working in recovery mode?

# Answer
In `mounts and storage`, `mount /system`.
> -2 votes

---
Tags: adb, shell, recovery-mode
---


# Question
Title: Galaxy S GT-I9000: how to fix boot to recovery with Volume up+Power?
I have Samsung Galaxy S (GT-I9000) and I've installed Cyanogenmod 10 M2. I can reboot into recovery from Cyanogenmod (Hold Power button, select Reboot and Recovery). However, I cannot boot directly to recovery holding Volume up + Power or Volume up + Home + Power when the phone is powered down.

**Do I need to do something to the phone hardware to get some button combination to boot to recovery mode?** As far as I know, the button combination I've tried is the correct one for this device. I can boot to download mode with Volume down + Power.

The recovery is the one installed along the official galaxysmtd Cyanogenmod 10 M2 ("CWM-based Recovery v6.0.1.4").

I would want to fix the issue because now I'm afraid to flash ROM updates because getting into recovery in case of boot loop is much harder if I cannot get the normal key combo to work.

# Answer
> 11 votes
OK. I found the correct combination. It seems that the recovery distributed with Cyanogenmod 10 M2 for `galaxysmtd` is really picky about the hardware buttons.

Here's how you can boot to recovery:

1. Start with Galaxy S powered off
2. Press and hold Volume up + Home
3. Press and hold Power button
4. Wait for (factory default) Galaxy S GT-I9000 boot display to show up
5. Release the Power button *before* the second boot display with text "Cyanogen(mod)" shows up. Keep holding the Volume up + Home buttons.
6. Wait for Recovery to start. After you see the recovery menu, you can release the Volume up and Home buttons.

If you fail to release the power button before the second boot display, you cannot get it to go into the recovery mode. Instead it will enter the normal boot sequence which seems to fail if you keep holding the Power button. On the other hand, if you don't keep buttons pressed long enough, it will enter the normal boot sequence, again. I haven't figured out if holding the Home button is really required but at least it does not prevent entering the recovery mode.

# Answer
> 3 votes
For anyone that arrives here via Google like I did, here is how I got into Recovery Mode:

Device: Galaxy S i9000M (the int'l version of i9000) ROM: CyanogenMod 10 (CM10)

The three button combo that used to work (Vol Up + Power + Home) did not work. However, holding BOTH volume button and power (no Home) launched me into Recovery pronto.

Hope this helps out a fellow Google traveler.

Cheers.

# Answer
> 0 votes
For me work: vol up + home + power (release power after showing Galaxy S GT-I9000 boot display and continue with vol up + home)

# Answer
> -2 votes
Hold the power button as you usually do for "power off". Then, select the option "recovery"; it will enter into the recovery mode.

---
Tags: cyanogenmod, samsung-galaxy-s, boot, recovery-mode
---


# Question
Title: Connecting a HDE keyboard to a Kindle Fire
I brought a HDE keyboard:

> Connects to your 7" tablet via USB 2.0 A-Type Male Adapter. Please make sure your tablet has a USB Type A Female to accept this plug type. Also, your device must have a USB host in order for the keyboard to function. Please consult the manufacturer of your tablet for those details.

for my Kindle Fire 1st Generation. I got the adapter to connect the A female to USB micro on the Kindle. Of course I didn't read all the through on this one, because I now need to have a host USB connection in order for the keyboard to work with the Kindle.

Any advice or do I have to ditch the keyboard and mark it as a bad deal?

# Answer
The USB port is not powered on the Kindle Fire, and thus cannot host USB devices. So, a wired external keyboard connected directly to your kindle is pretty much out of the question.

What if you were to power the keyboard some other way?

Well... that seemed to be the question this one gentleman asked himself. He decided that connecting a powered USB 2.0 hub to the kindle, and then connecting the devices to the hub would be the way to go. He found he needed a USB OTG cable to start the process. He hooked up the hub, plugged in the mouse, and saw a mouse cursor. He connected a keyboard, and could type.

So.. that's my advice. Get yourself a powered USB hub. Of course, unless you then got creative with supplying power to the hub via a battery pack, you are limited to using the keyboard to wherever you can plug the hub in... but that's still a step in the right direction.
> 1 votes

# Answer
The alternative is to try a wireless mouse and keyboard. They have built-in power supplies.
> -1 votes

---
Tags: amazon-kindle-fire, usb-host-mode, external-keyboard
---


# Question
Title: How to download pictures from Google Nexus?
With **T-Mobile myTouch 4G** and T-Mobile's default Android 2.2, I can download the camera photos by pairing the phone with a computer through Bluetooth, and using an integrated file browser functionality of the computer (e.g. the `Browse Device` option on OS X).

But Google's **Galaxy Nexus** with Google's default Android 4.2 doesn't seem to support file browsing over Bluetooth.

**How do I download the photos from the Nexus, without using any questionable third-party tools?** (Don't you find it ironic that a vanilla Google Nexus device doesn't have this rather standard functionality — file browser over Bluetooth — that all the old phones do have?)

# Answer
Bluetooth is a rather slow choice when it comes to transferring bigger files: to transfer 10 MB, you'ld need...

* BT 2.\* (2.1 MBit/s) ~ 40s
* BT 3.\* (24 MBit/s) ~ 4s
* WiFi g (54 MBit/s) ~ 2s

And with BT, the range is quite limited as well. Most devices probably still use BT 2 standard.

How to transfer your files then? You might want to check the most frequented questions of the "file-transfer" tag for that. The usual method (if you don't want any "questionable third-party tools" involved) is to connect your device to your PC using the USB cable -- which then should mount your device storage like a drive. You could also use some third-party tools (they are not all "questionable") to manage your device via WiFi -- AirDroid would be a good choice for that.

For transferring data between Android devices, you could use . Again, there are some good 3rd party tools to help, as e.g. SuperBeam or WiFiShare.
> 1 votes

# Answer
I use both Google+ Instant Upload and DropBox Photo uploading features. You can indicate whether or not to upload on Wifi only if you prefer preventing surprise overages if you don't have an unlimited data plan.

This also provides a nice cloud backup/storage facility.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: samsung-galaxy-nexus, bluetooth, 4.2-jelly-bean, file-transfer
---


# Question
Title: connect android devices in ad-hoc mode without needing to net connection?
can we get android devices in ad-hoc mode using WIFI-card but without access internet ? i mean to connect peers to send and receive messages between them but without having internet connection ?

i see this link talk about **wpa\_supplicant.conf**  to enable ad-hoc mode, but it seems that there are problems in this thing.

and see this command `iwconfig` but this doesn't support on android !!

# Answer
Ad-hoc is not natively supported by Android. But starting with Android 4.0 (*Ice Cream Sandwich*), a new feature called WiFi Direct was introduced:

> Wi-Fi Direct, previously known as Wi-Fi P2P, is a standard that allows Wi-Fi devices to connect to each other without the need for a wireless access point. This allows Wi-Fi Direct devices to directly transfer data between each other with greatly reduced setup.

(Source: Wikipedia)

> Support for Wi-Fi Direct lets users connect directly to nearby peer devices over Wi-Fi, for more reliable, higher-speed communication. No internet connection or tethering is needed. Through third-party apps, users can connect to compatible devices to take advantage of new features such as instant sharing of files, photos, or other media; streaming video or audio from another device; or connecting to compatible printers or other devices.

(Source: Android.Com)

To me, this looks like what you are asking for: directly connecting two Android devices via WiFi without the need of a "mediator".
> 2 votes

# Answer
While you can solve the ad-hoc wifi connection issue, I think your bigger problem is on the application level. All standard messaging applications do use some sort of a server to send the messages. Without the internet access you would have to set up your own server and at this point the ad-hoc wifi issue becomes a moot point - you will still need some infrastructure (the server) to be able to send the messages - why not the wifi access point then?
> 1 votes

# Answer
ad-hoc mode used to be supported in the Cyanogen ROMS, it is not in the stock images AFAIK.

Depending on your application, you might use Wifi Direct but I think it's a different API (rather than just behaving like an ethernet segment) and it does not cover all the uses cases that ad-hoc does.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Wifi direct is not wifi in ad hoc mode. Wifi Direct (p2p) is build over Soft Acces Point and make one of the device as "mediator" (call Group Owner). I had the same issue for one of my dev.

Wifi Direct is very interesting for dev betwenn many device without acces point but it still a application client/server
> 0 votes

---
Tags: 4.1-jelly-bean, linux, ad-hoc-networks, wpa2
---


# Question
Title: Factory reset without accessing phone settings
I have a **Micromax A35 Android(2.3.5)** phone which has been locked by repeated wrong attempts of the pattern lock.

Now the display screen asks me to enter my Google account username and password, but the WiFi and the mobile networks are disabled.

Is there a way to factory reset the phone without having access to the settings?

# Answer
First, even without having a network connection, you can try to unlock it with your Google account data. Usually the device stores a "token", so you might be able to log in.

Second, if that does not help, you might want to take a look at the tag-wiki, and at Cannot unlock tablet as have no internet connection?. There might still be a chance to unlock your device.

If nothing else helps, a factory-reset can also be done from the :

* Shut down your device
* hold the `Vol +` button and keep it pressed while additionally press the `Power` button. Keep both pressed until a text-menu appears
(if that doesn't work, try again while substituting `Vol +` with `Vol -`)
* use the volume buttons to select "Factory Reset"
* execute the item (usually done by short-pressing the `Power` button or by pressing the 'show more' button at the bottom-left of your phone)
> 1 votes

---
Tags: 2.3-gingerbread, factory-reset, locked-out, pattern-lock, micromax-a35
---


# Question
Title: How can I stop an ongoing sync process on my Desire?
yesterday I decided to upload all my phone's photos using PICASA. I thought the task would have required one hour or so but instead it is still running and is extremely slow! I would like to stop it but it seems impossible, I have the 'notification' of the ongoing process and whatever thing I do (reboot phone, shut down, advanced task killer, android assistant) as soon as I start an internet connection the process appear. Please help me close it! Thank you!

# Answer
I've tried but they didn't seem to make the icon disappear. After wandering through settings and application as suggested by Matthew this is what I finally did and it seems to work: Settings --\> Application --\> Manage App --\> Running --\> myuploads --\> Force Stop and eventually the icon of ongoing process was gone! Thank you for the important clue!!!
> 1 votes

# Answer
I'd go to `Settings -> Accounts and sync` and if you have an entry for Picasa, shut off sync for it. If that doesn't work disable **Background data** in the same place, then go to your Media app or wherever you set up the sync and shut it off. If you can't then you should go to `Settings -> Applications -> All` and clear the data for the relevant app(s).
> 1 votes

# Answer
1. Go to your Setting and from there click on the application manager
2. Once you are on application manager, swipe across the categories to find All. This will give you a list of all applications on your phone. Your application manager has three categories - a) Downloaded b) Running and c) All.
3. Once you select All, scroll down the list of applications to find Download Manager.
4. On Download Manager, click on the button that says Clear Data. Once the data is cleared, the download notification on the notification window will go away.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: htc-desire, processes
---


# Question
Title: How can I remove unwanted app icons from the screen?
I'm new to using an android. Apps I have never visited nor installed are showing up on my screen (Slots, Candy Crush, Expedia, Droid Games). If I touch them, I go to their site. I would like to remove them but can't figure out how? Any ideas?

# Answer
Sounds like you tapped into some spam trap. Certain apps place advertisements this way -- though the new playstore rules do no longer allow that. Others do the same in the notification area. Airpush is the best known evil source of such.

I suggest you scan your device for such apps. Try e.g. with TrustGo Ad Detector. Quoting from the apps description:

> It is common for advertising networks to collect information on how you use your device. Your information is then used for targeted marketing campaigns.
>
> Some common and aggressive methods include:
>
> * Pushing ads to your Android notification bar
> * **Creating unauthorized shortcuts on your home screen**
> * Modifying the default browser, homepage and bookmarks settings
> * Subscribing you to emails and text messages when an ad is clicked
> * Making phone calls and downloading malicious files when an ad is clicked

At least one line sounding familiar? (remark: emphazation is mine).

**EDIT:** Once you've identified the malicious app, make sure to...

1. report it to Google (according to the current playstore rules, this kind of advertisement is not permitted)
2. comment on the app to warn off other users
3. uninstall the app and leave it out
4. think about whether in the future you want to use any apps from such developers which do not respect your privacy
nothing bad with ad-financed apps -- but it a) should be clear where those ads come from, and b) they should be related to the app itself, i.e. being displayed in that app **when it's used** -- and not outside in different places whether you use the app or not
> 6 votes

# Answer
If they're on your home screen then long press them and drag them to the trash can on the screen. Depending on what phone you have and what version of Android it's running the trash can be in a different place. On the image below the trash can is at the bottom of the screen however I think on Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean it's at the top.

If you want to delete an application from the phone (and so from the menu screen) then go to `Settings -> Apps` and find the app you want to get rid of, click on it and there should be an `Uninstall` option, click this and the app and icon will be removed from the menu.

Since these icons/apps are appearing without you installing anything I assume they're being installed by a malicious application so although so may delete the icons they malicious app can just reinstall them, you should deal with the root of the problem, see Izzys answer for a suggestion on how to do this.
> 5 votes

# Answer
You should download AVG and scan for the app that is placing the apps on your screen and it will help you not to download future programs that so this as well AVG has a website that will allow you to track your phone in the event of loss all for free.
> -2 votes

---
Tags: home-screen, home-screen-shortcuts
---


title: Bypass memory manager; keep app alive

text:
# Question
Title: Bypass memory manager; keep app alive
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

# Answer
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.
> 1 votes

# Answer
The best option would be to tweak the low memory killer's minfree parameters.

Some background:

The Low Memory Killer is the mainstay of Android memory management. It's a more elegant approach than the Linux oomkiller and it works proactively to maintain the free pool rather than only kicking in when you're completely out of free memory. It separates apps into several categories for killing if the free memory pool gets below certain points. They're generally in the following order, from first-to-die to last:

EMPTY\_APP - These are apps that are not doing anything, nor waiting to do anything. They're just sitting around in memory.

CONTENT\_PROVIDER - These are background apps that content to active apps (e.g. The play store uses one to check for updates periodically. HTC Facebook sync is another common example).

HIDDEN\_APP - These are sitting in the background, not doing anything, but are still alive and possibly waiting for something.

SECONDARY\_SERVER - A server running in the background to provide services for a currently running app.

VISIBLE\_APP - This is an application that is in the background, but it is presently doing something.

FOREGROUND\_APP - This is what is presently running and on-screen.

If the free memory pool drops below a certain amount (e.g. 80MB is the default on my GS3), the system will first start killing off anything listed as an empty app until the pool is back above that line. If after it kills off all the empty apps the memory is still below the next line (e.g. 64MB), it'll start on the content providers, and so on, until eventually if only the foreground app is taking up all the memory (On my GS3, if everything except the foreground app has been killed and there's still less than 32MB of memory free) and threatening the system, it'll get killed off eventually.

Coming back to your actual question, what we want to do is adjust these values down, so the killer will kick in later and hopefully not kill the browser when you're still wanting it open.

The app MinFreeManager will allow you to adjust these values. Alternatively, they can be edited directly in `/sys/module/lowmemorykiller/parameters/minfree` where the parameters are in pages (4 kilobytes, so a value of 8192 means 32MB as ((8192\*4)/1024=32MB), and listed in reverse order from what I listed above. Both of these will require root. If you don't have root, there's basically nothing we can do to help.

In your case, the HIDDEN\_APP parameter (4th item in the minfree file) is probably what we need to change. For example, this parameter is by default 56MB on my GS3. Cutting this in half to 28M or using the mild preset in MinFreeManager would be a good starting point for tweaking.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: ram, task-management, standby, services
---


title: How can I minimize UI lag?

text:
# Question
Title: How can I minimize UI lag?
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?

# Answer
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.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: 4.1-jelly-bean, user-interface, resource-monitoring, optimization
---


# Question
Title: How do I configure Dropbox in my Galaxy S III so that it does NOT automatically upload every photo/video I take?
How do I configure Dropbox on my mobile - Galaxy S III so that it does **not** automatically upload every photo and video I take?

# Answer
> 4 votes
1. Open the Dropbox app on your device
2. Open the overflow menu (three vertical dots) and choose "Settings"
3. Under "CAMERA UPLOAD" tap "Turn off Camera Upload"

If you've installed Dropbox's Carousel app, it takes over the upload of photos.

1. Open the Carousel app
2. Click the weird smiley face in the upper left; this opens the "Settings" menu
3. Uncheck "Backup photos & videos" (or you can log out or uninstall the app)

---
Tags: dropbox
---


# Question
Title: Words are not clear on my Samsung Galaxy Y phone?
I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy Y phone and I noticed that text is a little blurry in the phone. I compared it with my Samsung Galaxy Ace phone and the difference is quite clear. The displayed text on the Y is ugly.

I have also attached an image of the phone below.

Why is text displayed blurry on the screen of my Samsung Galaxy Y phone?

# Answer
> 3 votes
The Samsung Galaxy Y is a low spec phone and most importantly this can be observed with its display.

Some common models in comparison (by resolution, pixel per inch, screen size, price):

* **Galaxy Y**: 240x320, 132 PPI, 3.0in, 110EUR
* **Galaxy Ace**: 320x480, 165 PPI, 3.5in, 190EUR
* **Galaxy Nexus**: 720x1280, 316 PPI, 4.65in, 410EUR

The text is blurry because there are much less pixels per inch to allow it to display text beautifully. You most probably can see individual pixels without a magnifying glass in comparison to "HD" displays like the Galaxy Nexus' and such.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Yes. The text is blurry in Samsung Galaxy Phone. If the text is not eligible in any apps you can use zoom option. Or you can buy other costlier smartphones mentioned above.

---
Tags: fonts, samsung-galaxy-y
---


# Question
Title: LED on Xperia Z only in operation while charging
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?

# Answer
This is a known bug in Xperia Z (sources  and ).

Currently the only way to restore the LED functionality is to:

* de-select `Settings -> Backup & reset -> Backup my data` and `Automatic restore`
* perform a factory reset from `Settings -> Backup & reset -> Factory data reset`
* Complete the reset manually (that is, without restoring apps/data from the Google account)

Hopefully this will be corrected in the next update.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Hi you can use LightFlow to setup how the led should act and in Stamina mode remember to add LightFlow umder apps active in standby mode.

Settings/Powermanagement/Stamina mode/+ add application

You have many possibilities with LightFlow.

Free version https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rageconsulting.android.lightflowlite

Full version https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rageconsulting.android.lightflow

Hope this is will help you.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: notification-led, sony-xperia-z
---


# Question
Title: Why is internet switched off when switching 2G/3G?
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?

# Answer
> 2 votes
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 `CDMA 800 / 1900`, 3G frequency is `CDMA2000 1xEV-DO` and LTE (4G) frequency is `LTE 1900`.

As far as Samsung Galaxy Nexus I9250's specification is concerned, the 2G frequency is `GSM 850/900/1800/1900`, 3G frequency is `HSDPA 900/1700/1900/2100` and LTE (4G) frequency is `LTE 2300/2400`.

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.

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Tags: internet, 3g, 2g
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# Question
Title: How to stop com.seven.Z7.Social Hub from keeping my phone awake?
com.seven.Z7.Social Hub is regularly keeping my phone awake for hours and hours. How do I stop it from doing so?

Thank you

# Answer
I eventually just stopped using the app. Not worth my headache. Thanks for the help.
> 1 votes

# Answer
If you are using Yahoo, and have recently changed your yahoo account passowrd, then this will cause the social hub app to get caught in a loop and drain the battery

Delete the yahoo account and recreating it should fix the issue (you may need to reboot and use the phone offline before it will let you delete the account)

Regards

Ian
> 0 votes

# Answer
This app is a Russian application erroneously installed as a "system" app (same package name as the Email hub). If you're rooted you can use something like Titanium Backup to remove the app. Otherwise you can try these instructions from an Android Authority article:

> Removing the application on un-rooted devices seems much harder, however success has been reported by clearing the Play Store’s data and cache from Settings\>Applications – Afterwards, just launch the Android Market application to re-acquire the current market state and Google Play application.
> -1 votes

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Tags: permissions, standby
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title: Disable an app from creating bookmarks

text:
# Question
Title: Disable an app from creating bookmarks
Recently I have observed some of the apps (Photo editors) asking for permissions like 'creating bookmarks' at the time of installation from google play.

How can I disable a particular application from creating a bookmark on the home screen, like in disabling notifications on per app basis.

Thanks in advance

# Answer
The Play Store does have an option in its central settings for controlling whether shortcuts on your home screen are automatically created for apps when you install them:

You can get here by opening the **Play Store**, pressing the `Menu` button on your phone (or the "three dots" menu icon if you don't have a hardware menu button) and select **Settings**, you should then see the "**Auto-add widgets**" setting that you can enable or disable.
> 1 votes

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Tags: google-play-store, 4.1-jelly-bean, permissions, bookmarks
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title: Merging Contacts

text:
# Question
Title: Merging Contacts
How to merge more than 5 contacts in the default contacts app? It gives the error saying "Unable to join contact.Maximum number of joined contacts is 5"

And in gmail (browser) you can go to contacts section and merge them. But Here in the phone is there a way that I can join/merge the 2 contacts in gmail?

# Answer
You can't actually merge contacts on the phone. It just links them together, but on the phone only (kinda like taking two contact cards and stapling them together rather than taking both cards and making one out of them). Most likely, the reason behind limiting it to 5 links is after that, with a lot of different contacts, it could start slowing things down.

The linking of contacts on the phone was designed as a way for you to link your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc contacts with your contacts from gmail (since gmail's contacts doesn't have a way to keep most of your external accounts tied with it), not for linking multiple gmail contacts together (since you should merge those).

If you go to http://contacts.google.com, under the More dropdown, select Find and Merge Duplicates. This will use Google's algorithms to try and best merge your duplicate contacts together. I found that the contacts it determines are duplicates are usually accurate.

If you find it didn't merge two contacts together that need it, you can click the checkboxes next to their name and then under the More dropdown, select Merge Contacts.

NOTE: Google+ contacts will automatically be linked through your gmail contacts.
> 4 votes

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Tags: contacts, 4.1-jelly-bean
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