# Question
Title: How would you avoid potentially dangerous apps in the Play Store
**edit: The goal of the question is to create a simple checklist for novice users.<br>**

It is not uncommon for news warning about malicious apps that have entered the Play Store to appear fairly regularly.

The common advice is to read reviews and check the app's ratings. However, attackers also do fake reviews and comments.

**Question 1:** What sort of criteria have stood the test of time to avoid this sort of malware?

* comments can't be trusted.
* rating can't be trusted.

At the moment, time of existance, e.g. 2+ years, is the only one I think is feasible.
Can it be trusted too? And what else is important?

* Yes or No criteria is preferable
* False positives are better than missed malware

**Question 2:** Is there a curated list of trustworthy apps?

Currently, APK Mirror seems to be the best alternative since the apps there are curated by them. But they don't allow paid-apps.

# Answer
While I mostly agree to Yaksha's answer, I still want to partly oppose it – and of course will include my reasons:

* **Instead of using Playstore, stick with *F-Droid* whenever possible.**
*F-Droid* only serves open-source apps – so other than what *Yaksha* wrote about Playstore apps, you *can* look into the source. But most users won't be that "techy" to really understand it. Which is why the F-Droid team does that for you: they compile from the sources they have checked before (and they have a community supporting them). Plus, they have very strong inclusion criteria an app must meet to be allowed into their repository. So you e.g. won't find apps with proprietary ad or tracking modules there. Plus, so-called AntiFeatures are *always* pointed out. No way a dev can "hide" that by keeping it out of the app description.
* **When you have to use Playstore, cross-check the apps with Exodus.**
Exodus grabs free (non-paid) apps from Play Store and analyses their code to detect trackers. It then points out how many of those it found and which ones. You can even read details on most of those "privacy snoopers" to know what they do. But they can only grab apps which require no payment.
**For paid apps: AppBrain.**
*AppBrain* offers an alternative front-end to what you find on Playstore – same data actually, and for installing an app you'd even be redirected to Playstore. But they add a bunch of useful information on top by checking the libraries an app contains, and grouping them so you can easily spot ads and analytics. Unfortunately, since summer 2017 free access is limited to 5 apps per day (creating a free account, you can top that up to 10).
* **Before installing a new app, cross-check with forums.**
Often, a simple search (using the engine of your choice) gives plenty of useful hints – e.g. latest reports if an app had "conspicuous activity". For example, Cheetah Mobile's "Security" apps caused a big uproar lately as they called up to porn pages in background. With that search you can also find "external reviews" – though most of those usually concentrate more on the features than on security or privacy (a big exception is the German portal MobilSicher which does it just the other way around).

To make those steps easier, when looking for a new app you can **use my app listings as a starting point.** There you find the apps ordered by ratings – but with useful annotations: number of permissions requested (and details on them), availability on different places (e.g. F-Droid *and* Playstore), links to reviews, marks on critical libraries used, and more. It's not the full load of apps available worldwide, but a good hand-selected amount (about 14k currently).

Another word: don't rely on so-called "Anti-Virus" apps – they are mostly snake-oil. For references on this statement, please check e.g. Is there really such a thing as an Android virus?, Android antivirus apps are useless — here’s what to do instead and Antivirus software is snake oil!.

And yes, of course use your "common sense" when taking a look at the permissions an app requests: are they really justified by the purpose? Though admitted, that's not as easy as it sounds. While it might be clear a torch doesn't need access to your contacts – could you guess if access to your camera might be justified? Spoiler: indeed, to fire the flashlight it might be needed. When in doubt, compare with other apps offering the same feature set. If one app needs 24 permissions for something another can do with 5, you can be almost sure the difference of 19 is needed by some ad or tracking module. Again, my above mentioned app listings make such comparisons easier. To pick up an earlier example again: if one app was brought up obviously malicious, avoid all other apps from the same dev as well – chances are rather good they have similar issues (so: no Cheetah Mobile, for example).
> 3 votes

# Answer
**USER IS THE WEAKEST LINK IN THE SECURITY CHAIN**

So, to protect against harmful apps, you must strengthen yourself on how they tend to take advantage of the User's unawareness.

By experience and an open mind to learn about cyber space security, **YOU** will become the best judge to decide which apps are safe. This will be always better than relying on any curated lists or whatsoever.

**You can't really look into the code and guard yourself against the technical glitches(which the Playstore will do by itself). All you can do is it not fall for the stuff that is directed on taking advantage of the user, which are difficult for programs to scan and capture, because it's dependent on YOU.**

As a quick guide, you may think of these for taking decision:

* **Stick to Playstore**. New users(until you know what you are doing) should never download apps from anywhere else, whatever may be the reason. If the reason is so strong that you want to go outside Playstore, then that is a very clear indication that you are going somewhere, not to be gone, and will surely end up with malware.
* **Is the app asking for permissions only for what it wants to do?** You may find that for the task that the app accomplishes, there's no need to access contacts data, but it still asks for that permission.
* **If it is an open source app**, that might be a good chance to move forward with it, although nothing can be guaranteed.
* **The way the app description is written on the play store.** If they are not really explaining the permissions and what they accomplish clearly, but are just trying to attract users, well that may not be a good one.
* **The purpose of the app itself:** It should be trying to do something that you can believe and not something magical which it claims only it can do.

A lot more...
> 2 votes

---
Tags: google-play-store, malware
---


# Question
Title: Does anyone know, or know how to determine, the dimensions of the Samsung Galaxy S6+ screen in pixels?
The reason I want to know is because I want to make a wallpaper for my girlfriend that exactly fits the screen

# Answer
> 0 votes
Samsung devices allow, under Developer Options, the ability to mark screen locations.

See Settings \> Developer Options \> Input

Select Show Touches, Show pointer location

Move to the points desired, and note their coordinates.

If you find the constant coordinates undesitreable, turn OFF the options after the operation is complete to your satisfaction.

To turn on Developer Options if needed:

1. Go to app drawer and open Settings
2. Go to bottom and tap About device
3. Tap repeatedly Build number 7 times. Starting at 3rd tap, you'll see a toast saying You are now X steps away from being a developer.

# Answer
> 0 votes
According to GSMArena, Galaxy S6 plus is equipped with a **5.5 inch, 1080x1920 screen** at 401 DPI.

Not much info can be found for it, as it seems to be a carrier-specific model.

# Answer
> -1 votes
@GreedySkull

I think what you mean is the resolution

The screen is **5.1 inch** high resolution Quad HD **1440×2560 pixel** display with **577 pixels per inch**.

Ensure the wallpaper you're making has a size of 1440×2560 so as to fit screen correctly

---
Tags: wallpaper
---


# Question
Title: Can viruses in (Primary or Secondary) user profiles on Android affect other users?
This says: "Any user can affect the installed apps for all users."

What does this mean?

I was concerned as to whether malware or any account from one user could affect anything from the other user. The previous statement: "No user has access to the app data of another user." seems to contradict this. In that a virus or other malicious application cannot affect the app data of another user. But if any user can install any application on all users, wouldn't this pose a security risk?

This seems to be contradicted by the fact that on a secondary user profile, when I go to Settings \> Apps I can only see the apps for this secondary user. I cannot see any app that I installed on the primary user.

On the Primary user profile, when I navigate to "/storage/emulated", I cannot see any folders at all, let alone the one for this user profile (I think this is where user profiles are stored). This suggests that the contents of the Secondary user profile are not viewable by the Primary User Profile.

If you want to know what a Primary or Secondary profile is, refer to the link under "User types".

# Answer
What meant here is. If the malware has installed itself as an application in system. It will affect the phone cross-users irrespectively. For a user installed app that contains malware also, it can affect users systemwide if the two users install the same application since Android shares the installation directory `/data/app` and the obb data at `/sdcard/Android/obb/` which initially on a new user isn't visible but turns visible on install of any app that utilizes obb files. The application data files at `/sdcard/Android/data` are not mutual across users though. Remember a file to be a malware it must be a file that can be executed by phone. So files of media, pictures, text based files can't be malware in any way. That's why I have emphasized about an app. A file to be a malware should be at:

```
/data/app

```

If it's a user installed app

```
/system/app
/system/priv-app

```

If it's a system app

```
/system/bin
/system/xbin

```

If it's an auto-executing system binary

```
/system/framework

```

If it is a framework that is being used by system or third party app to render UI of ads or drawing over the system(adware) and installing apps without prompting(bloatware).

```
/system/vendor/app

```

If it's a system user app.

Alternatively an app can create it's own space in system where it has heaped binaries, libraries, frameworks and shell scripts used to initialize it's services in system.

A user can only be safe if he installs apps that the other user hasn't installed.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: 7.0-nougat, malware, multi-user, profiles
---


title: Can display apps damage AMOLED screen?

text:
# Question
Title: Can display apps damage AMOLED screen?
I used app Screen Balance (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.uk.quickdoc.screenbalance&hl=sl) and one other screen app on my Galaxy S7 Edge and later (weeks or months later) I got some pink line and always on pixels. Is possible that this happened because of this apps? I like this apps because they can make colors on Galaxy S7 Edge display better (more cold) than original. Now I have new display on my phone and I am wondering if it is ok that I use Screen Balance and another screen app.

Thank you.

Bye

# Answer
Amoled screens can burn up. In bright colored UI, but for your case screen balance only adds some screen warmth (red hues) and coldness (blue hues) on it not changing the entire UI color like pure black or pure light. I don't think that can be a reason to your spoiling of screen. That is a totally different reason it got burning pixels.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: samsung-galaxy-s-3
---


title: Laugh detection in Android

text:
# Question
Title: Laugh detection in Android
I'm trying to detect laughs in Android. Something like a score if your laugh is louder or something similar.

Is it possible to detect laughs maybe through microphone, or facial detection through cameras? Any libraries/APIs or ideas how to achieve this?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Sources of facial detection, on a phone that detects face rests at:

```
/system/vendor/pittpatt/models
/system/vendor/pittpatt/recognition

```

I'm using CM13 for my case. They are located there. Maybe facial detection might do that

---
Tags: applications, camera, microphone, front-camera
---


# Question
Title: Nougot (android 7) status bar in lock screen
I have installed android 7 and now i want to i have problem with showing status bar while my phone is lock. by showing status bar any one can use the phone easily as using the guest mode or any thing else. i also want to remove the camera shortcut.

# Answer
To disable that users option

1. Go to settings
2. Click Users
3. Click Menu Icon
4. Untick Add users when device locked if you don't want adding users from lock screen.

To disable camera icon at lock

1. Go to Settings
2. Click on Lockscreen
3. Click Lockscreen shortcuts and remove the camera icon or replace it with another app
> 0 votes

---
Tags: 7.0-nougat
---


# Question
Title: How to prevent app from showing its update in play store using titanium backup?
I want to use the older version of ES file explorer (the one before it became bloated). Play store always shows me update for it, and I usually update all my apps in one go. I don't want to update it, I've even selected don't auto update for ES but still it comes up in list of app requiring update. What i do is that I detach it from the market using Titanium backup pro. It works fine, the app is no longer in update list but when i restart my phone, play store again shows update for it. So how to prevent play store from showing me update for this?

# Answer
I'll give you a good alternative for that

If you don't want to ever update the app even after you reset your phone and reinstall it without involving the Google Play Store settings. Grab an app called APK Editor from here. Install and run it,

1. Click on Select apk from App
2. Identify the app you don't want updated
3. Click it and chose common edit
4. Edit the package name section
5. Press done
6. Reinstall the app
7. Delete the original app

Google Play Store won't tell you any updates for it forever
> 6 votes

---
Tags: stock-android
---


# Question
Title: Why wouldn't Project Treble work on Android phones that weren't originally shipped with Oreo once updated to 8.0?
I saw a couple of references discussing Project Treble which all seem to agree that only phones which ***ship*** with Android 8.0 "Oreo" would be able to take advantage of Project Treble. The ones that did not won't be able to - not even when the non-8-shipping phones are themselves upgraded to Oreo.

**Why is that the case *for phones that will get Oreo 8 upgrades*?**

**What's missing from those phones that the Oreo updates for them wouldn't support Project Treble?** I was under impression that it was purely a software architecture, not some dedicated hardware.

In other words, why wouldn't releasing Oreo based firmware for the phone automatically make it into a Treble phone?

> The Pixel and Pixel XL are the only existing phones that will be able to use Project Treble's features, but phones shipping with Android 8.0 or later will have full access. We hope they take advantage of it! (*AndroidCentral*)
>
> Oxygen OS on the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T was upgraded to Android 8.0 Oreo the other day, and both the OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T are due for an update in early 2018. That’s mostly good news, but sadly, none of OnePlus’s phones will support one of Oreo’s headlining features: Project Treble. In an AMA on the OnePlus forums, OnePlus confirmed that the OnePlus 3, OnePlus 3T, OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T won’t get Project Treble support (*XDA*)

# Answer
> 2 votes
Yes, project treble is a software architecture update but there are few things to consider.

Q. What is the real reason for Android fragmentation?

A. One word answer is silicon vendor's kernel source.

They start developing the hardware almost 2 years before the commercial launch so the source is based on an Old Linux kernel version. As the silicon company is interested in developing new chips instead of supporting 2-year-old chips, they do not update the source for new Android release. Hence no device OEM can update it to the new version.

Google has done many efforts to resolve this issue. One is extended long-term support releases of Linux kernel (6 years instead of 2). Another effort is to provide silicon manufacturers a Vendor Test Suite (VTS) similar to CTS(Compatibility Test Suite). Now silicon vendors only have to develop source once which is compatible with VTS guidelines and Google will ensure that it will work with further updates. So vendors will not update previous chips according to VTS but upcoming all of the chips will be treble supported (hopefully).

So fragmentation is solved this way?

Wrong. Because this is only one of the cause of fragmentation. There is one more that is modifications done by device OEM and carriers. Treble is not a solution for these problems. The only solution is to stick to a pure stock android but no OEM is doing so. OEMs are not interested in porting their changes to every device because it needs a lot of work so they only work for their flagship devices. In the case of one plus, Snapdragon 835 is treble supported but I think they lack the workforce to port oxygen OS to next releases for old devices.

In a nutshell, Google has done the part to fight fragmentation now it depends on device OEMS.

I hope the answer helps.

**EDIT(One Plus):**

For One Plus refer this post

> However, because partitions were not required of Android N and previous versions of Android, all of our current devices do not feature a partition. According to our tests, if we were to modify the partition layout via OTA there is a risk that devices will brick during the partitioning.

In a nutshell, The main problem for one plus is that project treble requires different partitions for modularity of OS which was not the case before Oreo. As One Plus 5 as well as 5T were originally shipped with Nougat, they are not partitioned according to treble. Partitioning via OTA update can brick the device so they are not doing it.

Normal users want all the apps and data saved while updating which is very risky while partitioning via incremental update. You can do it with clean wipe but no OEM will do this as average user does not want treble at the expense of losing all the saved apps and data.

**TL;DR**

Phones shipped with nougat has only one partition i.e. system but for treble, vendor partition must be different from system and partitioning from ota update is not a good idea for companies.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Project Treble requires the OEM to **put *Android OS* and *vendor-specific* in two different partitions**. Most phones that are originally shipped with Nougat or lower do not have separate partitions for `/system` and `/vendor` (it's a symlink to `/system/vendor`).

Your statement is wrong. AFAIK Huawei Mate 9 series and P10 series **will** support PT after upgrading to Oreo. OnePlus refuses it because they don't want to push OTA packages that modifies the device's partition table. Same for \[HMD Nokia\].

---
Tags: 8.1-oreo
---


# Question
Title: Xiaomi Mi A1 proximity sensor not working
I just got a new Mi A1, not even a week old, and in the middle of calls my cheek is turning on the loudspeaker, muting, etc. Clearly the proximity sensor is poorly calibrated/not working.

Is there any easy way to fix this or should I return for a refund?

# Answer
Answer was actually pretty simple. This post suggests a couple of solutions, but the first one worked for me:

> Restart your phone.
> 1 votes

# Answer
The latest December 156 MB update seems to have resolved this issue.

The problem is with AOSP Phone app. If the latest update has not resolved the issue, install google dialer apk & make it default.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: xiaomi, proximity-sensor, mi-a1
---


# Question
Title: Google Contacts - only My contacts, not Others
I have Samsung Galaxy Note II, Android 4.3

I have synchronized it with my Google Account. The problem is that when I search for a name, it also searches all the contacts I have ever send an email to. I want it to search only `My Contacts` (the name of default group in GMail of contacts I have saved manualy), not `Other Contacts`. Is it possible? Thanks

**EDIT:** I'm not looking for how to display only certain group. I'm looking for how to **search** only in certain group.

# Answer
> 3 votes
On my phone (moto x) I had to go to the People app, touch the three dot icon, and touch "contacts to display" option. Then select the "back up assistant" option instead of any other option in order to only display those contacts that are stored on my phone.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Launch the Contacts app, click Groups, select My contacts, then complete your search.

# Answer
> 0 votes
In the menu go to "Contacts to display" then in "Customized list" under gmail account deselect other groups. Also you can select "only contacts with phones" in options.

# Answer
> 0 votes
found solution for this. tried with my Samsung s4..

> Go to Contacts -\> press Menu Key -\> Contacts to Display -\> Customized List -\> Tap the setting icon beside it --\> Tap arrow icon beside your gmail account --\> select the contacts to display

# Answer
> 0 votes
It works. Do not forget to switch to the contacts "old version", then select "other accounts", then check the box, then "add to my accounts". NB. everytime it adds 250 accounts displayed (if you have \>205 you need to select and add again, until over

# Answer
> -1 votes
Go to `google.com/contacts` and group all your contacts. On the phone, use `contacts to display` and choose the group you wanted to display.

---
Tags: contacts, sync, google-account, 4.3-jelly-bean
---


# Question
Title: How to enter "carriage return" in Android Google Keep in checkbox view?
I'm trying to add a new line in checkbox note items in Google Keep app using Android Keyboard (AOSP); but instead, a new checkbox item is added when I do :

* double tap on shift key → enter
* drag from shift key to enter
* long press enter key

I can accomplish the purpose nicely in PC (Google Keep Chrome Extension) with Shift+Enter combination; but how to in Android !?

# Answer
> 4 votes
This is not possible at the moment. Only thing I can think of is to use a clipboard app and copy-paste a soft linebreak into Google keep.

# Answer
> -2 votes
Android (AOSP) keyboard: When you hit the shift key (the one for the capital letters), automatically the key for the smiley (that is at the bottom right) becomes the key to start a new line.

SwiftKey Keyboard: (when keyboard of the letters (alphabetical)). (from the keyboard of the letters .(a b c ..) simply hold for a moment the key for the smiley, at the bottom right.

---
Tags: keyboard
---


# Question
Title: Is there any way to disable Direct Share on Android 6?
The Direct Share on Android 6 looks like this:

The problem is, I very rarely send something to contacts. It is much more frequent for me to look for some app, usually for processing the image, e.g. sharing from Google Camera to VSCO cam, or from VSCO cam to Instagram, Facebook, etc. Thus, the app list must be shown first. But I see this contact list that I will very unlikely use. I even doubt the contact in the rare occasion of direct share will be on the list.

This functionality also slows down the dialog, it takes quite a while for it to be shown.

So, the question is if there is any way to disable this functionality. I just don't need this.

# Answer
> 6 votes
If you are rooted but don't want to use Xposed you can use Android's native Intent Firewall to block direct share. This works on Android 6.0 all the way up to 8.1:

As answered earlier here: Removing contacts (aka “Direct Share”) from Share panel on Marshmallow

It turns out that - for rooted people - there is a way to completely turn off Direct Share!

In my search for a way to stop this stupid feature from bugging me I had a look at how the feature is actually implemented in apps by developers. It turns out that they register a service with an intent receiver (read: event listener) and when I realized that, I started looking for a way to block certain intents from broadcasting through the system. Well, Android actually has that built in. It's called the Intent Firewall. I quickly figured out how to create a rule for it to block apps from receiving the "Hey are there any apps that want to bug the user by putting a couple of Direct Share buttons under their thumb as they're about to tap something?"-event.

You just create a simple xml file like and drop this into it:

```
<rules>
  <service block="true" log="true">
    <intent-filter>
      <action name="android.service.chooser.ChooserTargetService" />
    </intent-filter>
  </service>
</rules>

```

Now you have to put it on the phone and copy it into the Intent Firewall directory. On most devices that would be

```
/data/system/ifw/

```

I simply used Root Explorer to copy the file there (no chmod required), tried to share something that caused Direct Share targets to pop up and BOOM! Nothing!

I recommend to do some background reading (see links above), especially about how the Intent Firewall works and how you can find the folder.

Happy not-sharing!

---
Tags: 6.0-marshmallow, nexus-5, share-menu, direct-share
---


# Question
Title: How to get to Torch on Moto G / Marshmallow 6.0.1
I have two copies of Motorola Moto G with (now) Marshmallow 6.0.1. One of them has recently "removed" Torch icon from notification area:

Now, I don't have access to it at all. Neither in Settings menu, nor among installed apps.

How can I start it on the other phone or how can I "reset" notification area on the other phone to the same state like previously / like on the first phone?

**EDIT**: I have enabled and made use of *System UI Tuner* \> *Quick Settings*, but it brought no help. I can see *Torch* icon enabled there, but I still don't see it in quick access area, where I saw it just a week ago and for the past year or so.

The same story goes for *Broadcast Title* and *Invert colours* icons, which I can add to my layout in *System UI Tuner* \> *Quick Settings*, but which actually never appear in quick access area.

I have just made a test photo with flash light enabled to double check that there are no hardware issues that could be causing *Torch* icon to disappear.

My current system:

* Android version: **6.0.1**.
* Android security patch level: **1 September 2017**.
* Baseband version: **M8916\_20250106.08.05.14.02R HARPIA\_APAC\_DSDS\_CUST**.
* Kernel version: **3.10.49-g5531188 hudsoncm@ilclbld71 #1 Mon Sep 25 05:50:06 CDT 2017**.
* Build number: **MPIS24.241-15.3-26**.

*Exactly the same* on both devices that I own.

# Answer
> 2 votes
This appears to be an old problem cited two years ago wherein torch light and cast icons as in case of OP go missing. Reason attributed is some icons disappear if not used for long and reboot brings them back as it happened in OP's case.

Probably this is a bug that is continuing and not found in latter models - I don't see that on Moto X Play (also maybe because I use Gravity box Xposed module interface for quick settings)

It sounds stupid, but it looks like you have to remember to use those icons to be able to find them when you need them :(

---
Tags: 6.0-marshmallow, motorola-moto-g, user-interface
---


title: How to end do not disturb mode?

text:
# Question
Title: How to end do not disturb mode?
Not able to end the do not disturb mode. Tried clicking the 'end now' tab repeatedly, doesn't work. Neither there's anything in the settings nor in the slide down quick settings.

It's getting inconvenient to check the notifications, as the mode says 'priority only'. What are the solutions?

# Answer
> 5 votes
Greetings! Sincerely hope (and, quite likely!) you have already figured it out. Here, hoping it would help others with this same query, a simpler solution —

* Simply **pull down the volume** to *vibrate*
* Then, pull it down **once more** to *silent*
* And, then, just **pull it up again** as much as you like :-)

And, voila, it's no longer stuck at "Priority Only"!

Cheers, Oli

# Answer
> 2 votes
Here's how to fix this issue:

1. Goto **Settings**
2. Tap on **Sound & notification**
3. Tap on **Do not disturb**
4. Tap on **Priority only allows**
5. **Toggle any item on & off** and that will trigger DND to be off.

Good luck!

# Answer
> 2 votes
Try this:

Long press power button \> long press 'shut down' \> reboot to safe mode \> wait until your phone is ready to go.

Keep pressing volume down button until vibration mode \> press once more for silent mode\> press 'end now' to end do not disturb mode.

Once you are done, restart your phone.

# Answer
> 1 votes
My phone was stuck at do not disturb sigh (a circle with minus sign), This is how i fixed it.

1. Press the volume button in your phone
2. Bring ringer volume to zero using volume button.
3. Press end now in do not disturb and it will go away.
4. Raise volume to normal after that.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Guys i have faced the same problem. How i solved was, i have pull down the volume button till silent and do not disturb mode shown as untill you turn off then i turned off it and increased volume to ringer.

---
Tags: nexus-5, 6.0-marshmallow
---


title: Android TV autostart script

text:
# Question
Title: Android TV autostart script
I want to run a script after booting from a Android **TV** box (Xiaomi Mi Box)
I tried a lot but nothing works. Is there any option to 'activate' an `init.d` folder?

# Answer
> 0 votes
You could go with to accomplish this.

There are several candidates for this e.g Macrodroid (free up to 5 macros) , Tasker (free 7 day trial) etc *(but I am an intermediate user of the the latter hence prefer it)*

**Profile (or Trigger)**

Create a Profile which allows triggering of the Task after boot:

* Go to Profiles Tab and click the "+"
* Event ➡ System ➡ Device Boot
* Tap back to exit from this window

**Task**

You will notice as soon exit, you will be prompted to link this to a Task

* Scroll all the way up the Task list select "New Task + "
* You can name this Task anything (optional).
* Click "+" to add new Action
* Code ➡ Run Shell \[ Command (`enter script command`) , Tick "Use Root" if it needs root\]
* Tap back to exit from this task

*Explanation: Soon after boot, your predefined script will be executed by Tasker*

---
Tags: boot, scripts, auto-start
---


title: Cache transfer when switching phone

text:
# Question
Title: Cache transfer when switching phone
Is the content of the web cache of my phone transferred when I switch from one android phone to another? How about web history and DNS cache?

Thanks

# Answer
You must first understand what cache data is.

Cache data is CPU specific and instance specific. For the same app, different CPU may create different cache depending on what part of the app is running as a process. Moreover, even the same CPU running at different instances may have different app cache. If you open an app, keep it running in the background, but never open it in foreground, the cache created will be different from the one created if the app has been running in foreground. Moreover, once the app has been closed and its process has been killed, then cache space for that data is allowed to be overwritten by new incoming data. So, cache data is never constant.

Don't even think of transferring cache data, because no one can ever do that, and you **don't** even **need to do it**. It does not contain anything that you need to transfer. Cache is created and deleted by the microprocessor. You as a user should stay off from cache data intricacies other than clearing it at times to boost speed of CPU.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: cache, dns
---


title: How to root Samsung J1 Ace?

text:
# Question
Title: How to root Samsung J1 Ace?
I have tried with many apps but none of them help to root Samsung J1 Ace (SM-J110H).

Is there any successful method to root Samsung J1 Ace (SM-J110H) smart phone?

# Answer
> 0 votes
Download Odin, SuperSU.zip and twrp for the j110h. Then be sure to enable adb debugging and OEM unlock in developer options. Then reboot into download mode. Plug into PC start Odin, choose the correct twrp and click start and at the same time hold down vol up and home button, I'm thinking g when I flashed this recovery I had to hold the vol up and home while it appeared to restart a couple times but it did work. When twrp finally boots it should mount on the PC and then transfer the SuperSU zip and then flash it.

---
Tags: rooting
---


# Question
Title: How to stream music from one android device to another?
I have an android tablet in my car which is connected to my car's Audio System. My Phone has my most recent music collection on it. How can I directly stream music from my phone to my tablet, without having to copy the files or the devices being on the same wifi network? Can this be done with bluetooth? Both devices are running Jelly Bean.

# Answer
This app could do the trick:

Bluetooth Music Player Free

You need to install it on both Android devices and pair them. Then put the tablet in `ListenMUSIC over Blueetooth` mode and the the phone in `shareMUSIC over Bluetooth` mode.
> 5 votes

# Answer
Apart from "Bluetooth music player" (mentioned in above answer), you may also try SoundSeeder speaker or SoundSeeder Music player. As i remember, at first you should pair the devices. From the description of *SoundSeeder Music player:*

> Soundseeder turns all your devices into into wireless speakers. Play your music louder and share it with your friends. All connected devices (Android, Windows, Linux, Raspberry Pi, ...) play the music in sync as one large sound system.

*SoundSeeder speaker* is

> a speaker-only version of the SoundSeeder Music Player and was designed for devices running Android 2.2 - 4.0 only.
> 2 votes

# Answer
It's really hard to do that. But I did a lot of research and got a way. Has several delay, connection and root problems, but apparently works. For this you will need to have the "AirAudio" application installed on the server and the "AllConnect" receiver. Then you open AirAudio on the home screen and then open AllConnect, press on your device, then on sources and choose the server, then choose the streaming mp3. The problem is that the delay is very large and another defect is that to transmit only the sound of the system of the android server you should have root on the phone ... I also tried the receiver of the streaming being the VLC, was less delayed but still So it's uncomfortable.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: bluetooth, music, streaming
---


# Question
Title: What does this crescent shaped icon mean and do?
This icon popped up on my screen today. I don't know how or what it does and how to remove it. I have a Redmi 4a.

Does anyone know to remove it?

# Answer
That's **DND** (Do Not Disturb)

> DND is a feature which after enabling you aren’t disturbed by notifications or other forms of incoming communication. Do Not Disturb(DND) can be set automatically or manually based on a few parameters that you control.

One way to disable DND is to drag down your Notification Panel and select DND from the different toggles.

Alternatively navigate to Settings \>\> Do Not Disturb and disable it.

Acknowledgements

DND (Do Not Disturb) - A Nice Way To Block Unwanted Notifications!!
> 5 votes

---
Tags: notifications, notification-bar, notification-icons
---


title: Boot LG G3 hard drive from PC

text:
# Question
Title: Boot LG G3 hard drive from PC
My father's LG G3 has stopped working. after logo screen it just shuts down.

Is there a way to *boot the phone as only a hard drive* from a PC ?

He has important notes on the phone that he needs to restore.

Thanks

# Answer
> 0 votes
No, because you have to boot up your phone to use the MTP functions like HDD (or External Mass Storage). Probably your father did a **NAND erase**, which delete the boot-up partition. You could use LG Flash Tool to install the .kdz and make the new partition.

---
Tags: boot, lg, lg-g3
---


title: VLC speed play in Android app

text:
# Question
Title: VLC speed play in Android app
In VLC player there is a "faster" and "slower" button that makes the video go faster or slower so that if you need to learn something (for example a guitar solo) you can slow it down a bit or if someone is talking too slow in a documentary you can speed it up a bit.

Does anyone know any Android app that does the same? I have a couple of documentaries that I need to speed up on my tablet and it's driving me nuts that I cant do it.

I have tried these apps so far:

* VLC (neon)
\[UPDATE: VLC does support playback speed adjustment by now. (See answer below.)\]
* MX player
* Poweramp
* *and a couple others*

Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance!

# Answer
**VLC for Android** **supports playback speed** regulation up to 4.0x, with audio pitch adjustment (optional).

The setting is under  ( *Advanced Options*).
Image source: https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Android/#Video\_playback\_interface
> 4 votes

# Answer
When you play an audio file in vlc tap the track name at the bottom to bring up the playlist. In the upper right tap the dots then the image of a man running. This changes playback speed. In settings you can check a box that says "remember playback speed" so that you won't have to do this again next time
> 2 votes

---
Tags: video, media-player, vlc
---


# Question
Title: How do I tell whether an app or website has accessed my account password?
Is it possible for apps to access one's Google account login credentials? How can a user determine whether this has occurred?

# Answer
To determine if an app has accessed your account, you would need to look at that service.

For example, too see if an app is connected to your Google account, while logged into your account in a browser go to https://myaccount.google.com/permissions and you will see all the connected apps, what they are connected to and if they have basic account information permission or not.

Facebook has a similar page available at https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applications as does Twitter at https://twitter.com/settings/applications

Other services you may have given an app credentials to likely have a similar page, if not I don't believe there is a way in your Android device to see if an application has actually used any permission or credential you have given it.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: applications, security, permissions, password, password-protection
---


# Question
Title: locked of screen lock - time password app
My son has downloaded a screen lock app on his phone which changes the password every minute according to the time. However a few day in, the app has stopped working and he is now unable to get access to his phone. We have no clue how to fix this problem and would appreciate idea. this is the link to the app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.adriadevs.screenlock.ios.keypad.timepassword

# Answer
**Being that this is a third party app, you can put your phone into safe mode, and uninstall the app**.

Being that, when you boot your phone into Safe mode, it doesn’t run any third-party apps installed on your device. therefore, your lock screen will not appear in safe mode.

To go into safe mode on a Samsung (I don't know what phone you have) do the following:

1. Turn your phone off.
2. Then, Press and hold the Power button, until you see the animated Samsung logo appear.
3. Release the Power button, and press and hold the Volume down button. Keep holding it until your device boots up.
4. You can let go when you see the words "Safe mode" in bottom-left corner.

(It should be similar on most phones, but if it's not the same on yours, then search Google for "how to enter safe mode on \[name of your phone\]")

When in safe mode, go to settings -\> apps -\> time password (or whatever the app is called on your phone) -\> uninstall.

If the uninstall bottom is greyed out, go to settings -\> security -\> device administrators, and turn off the app from being an admin.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: lock-screens
---


# Question
Title: How to get camera and gallery working for android 5.1
My phone recently couldn't use Camera neither the front or rear camera. It would show black screen and freeze I cleared cache and did a hard reset. It didn't solve it. So I thought of uninstall both apps(with root) and try to reinstall them. I did but nothing changed. So I decided to uninstall and replace with the gallery and camera app of my marshmallow device. Both were installed but forced stopped. So I moved them to system/app. It still didn't work. Now I don't even have a backup of the original apps. Is there a work around for this? I don't want to flash. And is there a way I can extract those files from the firmware I downloaded?

# Answer
Extracting them from a firmware is dependent on what is the file extension for the firmware. We have a variety of firmwares:

1. Fastboot Imaged Firmwares
2. Full Over the Air zip Updates
3. We have Odin tar Archives
4. LG kdz Firmwares
5. Spreadtrum soc Firmwares
6. Recovery Flash zip Firmwares
7. Raw binary Firmwares

So if you may want to extract from Fastboot .img firmware, you should know that img files are specially extracted and edited by repacking. Especially for true boot and recovery images. But hope for you is: /system is not a true imaged partition but its a file system. Though named as System.img in ROMs, it is natively a .tar archive that you can extract using WinRAR on computer and locate the app and extract it. The structure is arranged just like the /system partition of Android.

Recovery Flash zips and Over The Air zip updates, as the name suggests are zip archives which can also be extracted with a method similar like the above

KDZ and SOC Firmwares are also archives. But since you don't want to take a lot of time researching what types of archives they are, just open WinRAR on any device you feel convenient and use it as your file explorer. Navigate to the ROM you downloaded and click on it. This will actually do auto-detect the compression algorithm used and it will open it. It will show what type the archive is in the file name of archive. Find your files and copy them.

ODIN tar is a tarball archive. Just extract it with RAR or any other app you find convenient.

You're only locked to flash a whole ROM if your phone has a RAW binary file which can only handled by certain preloading binaries which understand them natively.

Lets come to laying the file back to rest on your file system. Android Nougat always is simple to lay the apps to system. The containing folder obviously had two or one folders in it. One for .dex classes named OAT for easier preparation by the Dalvik Virtual Machine which takes care of all application preparation. And one for libraries used by application named LIB.

They go here: for example the Camera app

```
/system/app/Camera/lib/arm/lib_camera.so

```

That's the library

```
/system/app/Camera/oat/arm/Camera.dex

```

That's for the Classes

```
/system/app/Camera/Camera.apk

```

That's for the application

After copying them. Fix the permissions to

```
chmod 0644

```

For all files

```
chmod 0755

```

For all folders

I hope this is all you need. As per your question But if they don't, just flash the whole phone and be ready to go again.

Be sure to review, vote or mark this answer if it helped you. Waiting to hear from you buddy
> 0 votes

---
Tags: camera, apk, gallery
---


title: Rooting Stock Wileyfox Spark CM13 OS

text:
# Question
Title: Rooting Stock Wileyfox Spark CM13 OS
Has anybody in this world ever succeeded rooting this device? Tried, all One Click apps, Desktop Tools, Recovery Flash:

1. Kingroot says Not Adaptable
2. Kingoroot says Error code 0x00...
3. Others say try Desktop version after fail
4. TWRP SuperSU.zip package says exiting process after judging a lot of options
5. All desktop apps fail same way or the other

What do a person do after all these attempts?

While closely inspecting the file system in /data I found out three files: a .gz archive of stock boot.img named by the md5sum of its content .img 16MB, SuperSU.img 99MB, and SuperSU.apk 6MB. Why the hell could the developer put the files here and device never seems to use any of these files at all?

@Izzy, your suggestion about trying was a good one but i have tried all the SuperSU zips by Chainfire and all the phone ends up in this state: In fact, the phone is unlocked, TWRP says this no matter which file I use trying to root (first screenshot); additional suggestions about a special CMSuperSU also ends up with this (second screenshot; click images for larger variants):

And Magisk install completes well from recovery. On boot up Magisk app shows but as a user installed app. And prompts this which becomes unsuccessful too:

# Answer
> 1 votes
Rooting can be accomplished using **Magisk** (make sure not to use an old version, but that from the linked XDA thread: v14 at the time of this writing). Flashing *Magisk* will not modify the `/system` partition but rather create a modified boot image. So at boot time, *Magisk* gets initialized, creating an Overlay File System on top of the system structures. That way the relevant files get (re)placed transparently, the checksum of the partitions are kept (thus OTAs will not complain), while still applying the needed modifications (including MagiskSU). Another added plus is the capability of *Magisk* to hide root from apps which otherwise would refuse their work.

As you've learned: Do ***not*** flash another superuser package on top of that. *Magisk* already includes root, called *MagiskSu.*

I'm using *Magisk* on my Wilefox Swift with CyanogenOS 13 without issues – same manufacturer and OS as your Spark. As we figured, it works on both.

*Magisk* comes with an app called *MagiskManager* (which is also available separately e.g. via my F-Droid repo. This is the frontend to work with the framework, including settings for *MagiskSU* (i.e. where you maintain which app may use root powers) and more. So there are several *Magisk* modules available, similar to what you might know from *Xposed* – even a "systemless Xposed" can be used that way (again, I'm using this and it works fine).

For instructions, please see the linked Magisk thread at XDA. It's quite simple. To include the basics: You need a custom recovery (TWRP is recommended, and available for our Wileyfox devices). With that, and an *unrooted ROM,* simply flash Magisk, reboot, and you're done. You probably need to repeat this after applying OTAs. As the *MagiskManager* is installed as an user app, its data are kept unless you perform a factory reset.

---
Tags: cyanogenmod, rooting, stock-rom, supersu
---


# Question
Title: HTC One (M8) blinking red notification light
So after replacing the battery in my One (M8) with a new one from eBay, the notification light just blinks orange when charging. When swapping back to the battery before replacement, it, at least, shows a battery charging screen. What am I doing wrong? I've heard something about 'deep discharge' where it needs to be on the flashing light for 15 to 30 minutes to actually start charging or something like that.

Is this new battery a dud? Should I keep charging it? Really don't know what to do at this point...

Update! I reseating the battery connector on the motherboard and now it's a solid red light when plugged in! Hooray! When pressing the power button, though, nothing is shown on the screen. It's still all black. I just now replaced the screen, since I broke the LCD below the glass last time I tried to take it apart.

# Answer
Make sure the snap on the bottom of the battery connector is seated properly. Hold your finger on the connector while you set the screws.
> 0 votes

# Answer
Also happened to me. Also reseated the battery but then it still blinked. After a while when I almost gave up the screen came up all by itself with a battery symbol and it started charging. Then the screen went off and the led turned solid orange. By that time I could also switch it on again normally.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: battery, htc-one-m8
---


# Question
Title: Phones that can have bootloaders unlocked
Very new to Android and wish to experiment with custom roms (that require an unlocked bootloader) on an inexpensive used phone.

How can I tell if a specific Ebay phone is capable of having the bootloader unlocked, i.e., not having this disabled by the manufacturer/seller?

# Answer
> 0 votes
Only a portion of devices powered by Android has feature that bootloader can not be unlocked - to clear ambiguity and be precise - unlocking method has not been found.

Bootloader lock and carrier lock are two completely different things. With bootloader lock, OEM vendors force regular users to use only their - stock - ROM. But, with carrier lock, network operators force same users to use only their cellular network infrastructure. In both cases, those locks can be removed.

Bootloader can be unlocked, even if seller factory reset device && relocked bootloader before sell.

If not acknowledged by seller, you as a buyer can not know whether device bootloader is (re)locked or not. Also, if model is same, it can not exist in

```
exist in bootloader unlockable versions and manufacturer bootloader unlock disabled versions
```

it is simply a matter of applying correct procedure to unlock bootloader of particular model.

Most valuable resources about possibility to unlock bootloader and install custom ROM is devices' wiki on LineageOS and list of TWRP custom recovery images.

There are device projects that are done by community side or unpublished at all, but, in that particular case, consult Google.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Thanks.

I have tried cross referencing the LinageOS device lists and Ebay phones, but the same model of some phones may exist in bootloader unlockable versions and manufacturer bootloader unlock disabled versions. Like a Moto G4. One can't readily see on Ebay which is which.

I've decided to hunt an Ebay GSM phone supported by LineageOS that is already bootloader and carrier unlocked and not yet converted from the original Android rom to experiment with.

(I use a pristine Moto G4 bought on Ebay that already had LineageOS installed, but I use it daily and will not experiment with it. Great phone, great LineageOS rom.)

---
Tags: bootloader-lock
---


# Question
Title: zte 9560 fairly new when powered on goes to FTM screen
I have zte 9560 thats 5 months old. I recently deleted facebook and instagram programs because of downloads that happened 3 times weekly. Now I get FTM screen on start up. After trying suggustions from your site I still am having issues with booting , factory reset. Now the phone is off but there is a small white circle light at bottom that stays on. Any suggestions ? Any chance of getting into phone from laptop ?

# Answer
> 0 votes
Things to know about factory mode: In many devices, especially the mediatek based ones have three types of booting behaviours.

1. Fastboot(Bootloader)
2. Normal Boot(Starting Android System)
3. Recovery Mode(Updating and Debugging)
4. Factory Mode(Testing the System Hardware)

The automatic booting is Starting Up Android System when phone OS is in good state. Sometimes this partition that might get damaged leading to frequent or infrequent start-up to recovery or basically any other boot automatically. This is just corruption of the Boot Order or Choice.

For booting to recovery problem, this can be fixed by flashing boot.img to recovery partition if one ever wants to use the system without reflashing. This is possible since all these partitions carry bootable images.

Factory mode isn't initiated by an image. It is initiated by a file at `/system/bin/factory`. This is a binary file. Since there's no other way of booting the system using a binary file, this is the hardest brick in Android. The only binary that can replace this is the reboot binary, but though since the Android is not booted up, you can't replace it or flash it in at device off state.

Though one type of boot that we haven't talked about from above is our only last hope. Fastboot Mode. This is initiated almost immediately from boot. While starting the phone, hold the volume up button. This may take you there straight or take you to a menu of options on the type of boot you need to perform.

You'll be lucky if you had allowed OEM unlock from Development Settings while phone was on and working. Here you can boot a recovery like TWRP from there and delete the factory file at bin making it have option to always boot again.

The key combo to boot to fastboot varies from device to device. So you'll have to search for that specific phone model combo.

Note. *Factory Mode is delicate. You have no option other than flashing phone if this was touched from Factory Mode. 'Clear EMMC' is an option that is written as I have written hereon or some chinese characters preceding EMMC. This clears the entire phone Flash including the system, boot, recovery, frp, nvram, logo etc leaving only preloader for loading files to system flash again using Flashing Software*.

**If you incase touched that at Factory Mode just Reflash. Search on how to flash your specific phone model. Good Luck**

---
Tags: applications, recovery-mode, factory-reset, restore
---


# Question
Title: in whatsapp, how do you display contacts in alphabetical order?
I used to be able to get whatsapp to show contacts in alphabetical order but now the option has gone. I can't see all my contacts listed from a-z. It shows them in order of the last message between us.

How can I display whatsapp contacts in alphabetical order?

**added**

# Answer
> 1 votes
The screenshot on the right, is showing you your active chats. This goes by the order of the last message you received.

To view all your WhatsApp contacts in an alphabetical order, click on the green circle on the bottom right of the screen. This will bring up a list of all your contacts that use WhatsApp.

---
Tags: whatsapp-messenger
---


# Question
Title: Recover nexus 5x with locked bootloader and TWRP
I bought a used nexus 5x and got a message saying to lock the bootloader to allow OTA updates. So I did, not fully understanding what my situation was. It wiped the phone and now it won't boot. I can get into TWRP but that's it.

I tried loading a bullhead factory image (as well as a lineage zip) on a USB-C flash drive from the TWRP install menu but it failed with error 7.

I'm not really sure what to do now. Is there any way I can get my phone flashed with a working image? Ideally the factory image.

edit: I should add that I tried the standard flashing instructions but they all start with unlocking with fastboot which doesn't work apparently because i need to check a box in the unbootable OS.

update:
Well, for some reason poking the clear cache button in TWRP fixed it and it booted, I was then able to unlock the boot loader and install the factory rom. Not sure how to evaluate the answers now as I can't test them.

# Answer
Both locking and unlocking bootloader performs a factory reset on your device on the next boot. This wiping needs stock recovery. You had installed TWRP to the device and since you locked back bootloader. It needed the default recovery to be able to wipe it, since it wasn't there, TWRP tries to wipe, boot and fail, back to TWRP on and on forever. Flashing stock recovery either via fastboot, or flasing software will help it reset hence boot again. If you feel new to this. You can request a full more detailed answer from me and I'll edit this to your convenience.

Note: *Flashing software will always download in firmware regardless of the state of that checkbox*
> 1 votes

# Answer
If flashing stock recovery image from appropriate factory image with fastboot and factory reset doesn't help, you can restore factory Nexus 5X image with TOT file with LGUP.

For this operation, no ADB && Fastboot is required.

Unfortunately, I had direct experience with Nexus 5X with erased bootloader or locked bootloader with non-factory ROM - though, with successful outcome.

Even I do complete procedure from Windows 7 virtual machine, it should be done natively

```
Download TOT file
```

```
Disconnect device from computer and turn it off
```

```
Install LG usb drivers
```

```
Install LGUP
```

```
Install 8994 dll for LGUP
```

```
Enter download mode by pressing and holding the volume+
button while connecting device to computer with USB cable -
if done in timely manner, Windows should install drivers
```

```
Start LGUP - if everything is done correctly, device should
be detected - then navigate - browse downloaded TOT file,
select refurbish and click start
```

Original information can be read from here
> 1 votes

---
Tags: twrp, bootloader-lock
---


# Question
Title: S-On, No OS, UNLOCKED, No TWRP and want to install custom OS on HTC One M8
I have a HTC One M9 and would like to install the cRDroid ROM. When going into the bootloader I see:

* Software status: Modified
* UNLOCKED
* S-ON
* (Now the options)
    + REBOOT
    + REBOOT TO BOOTLOADER
    + BOOT TO DOWNLOAD MODE
    + BOOT TO RECOVERY MODE
    + POWER DOWN

I have tried to flash the OS via fastboot `fastboot flash boot boot.zip` this returned:
`FAILED (remote: cannot flash this partition in s-on state)`.
When I tried to boot with `fastboot boot boot.zip` I got:

```
creating boot image...
creating boot image - 381388800 bytes
downloading 'boot.img'...
OKAY [ 12.064s]
booting...
FAILED (remote: dtb not found)

```

Also booting to download mode got me `Failed to boot to download mode`

# Answer
The Problems turned out to be dead NAND flash, which will need to be replaced
> 0 votes

---
Tags: rooting, rom-flashing, custom-roms, htc, htc-one-m9
---


title: Certificate expiry upcoming

text:
# Question
Title: Certificate expiry upcoming
Today my phone tells me that its certificate will expire in February 2018

What will happen to my phone when this date occurs?

Do I need (a) to worry (b) to take pre-emptive action? ...

# Answer
> 1 votes
Certificates sign apps as they are submitted to the Play Store, and are controlled by the app developer. If you are getting a warning, it should be specific to the app it reports against. Contact the app developer to seek a rebuilt app with an updated certificate. The following is from Google's development documentation, and is for the app developer (who should also be aware of the expiration):

**Expiry of the debug certificate**

The self-signed certificate used to sign your APK for debugging has an expiration date of 365 days from its creation date. When the certificate expires, you will get a build error.

To fix this problem, simply delete the debug.keystore file. The file is stored in the following locations:

```
~/.android/ on OS X and Linux
C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\.android\ on Windows XP
C:\Users\<user>\.android\ on Windows Vista and Windows 7, 8, and 10

```

The next time you build and run the debug build type, the build tools will regenerate a new keystore and debug key. Note that you must run your app, building alone does not regenerate the keystore and debug key.

**Manage your key**

Because your app signing key is used to verify your identity as a developer and to ensure seamless and secure updates for your users, managing your key and keeping it secure are very important, both for you and for your users. You can choose either to opt in to use Google Play App Signing to securely manage and store your app signing key using Google's infrastructure or to manage and secure your own keystore and app signing key.

So, simple answer to:

a) Worry? - Maybe (from further down the documentation page **"When your key's validity period expires, users will no longer be able to seamlessly upgrade to new versions of your app."**)

b) Action? - note the app and the contact information of its developer, seek replacement app.

---
Tags: certificates
---


# Question
Title: How to share pictures from Photos to Instagram
I am on an older Android phone (Motorols Droid Turbo 2), and want to share an album (or even just single photos) from Google Photos to Instagram. I went through the steps of sharing on Photos, but Instagram is not an option to share to. Please let me know if there is a way to add Instagram as a sharing option to Google Photos on Android. Thanks in advance for your help!

# Answer
If you can't find the photo when you are uploading from within the Instagram app, it's because the photo isn't saved to your device.

1. Open Google Photos
2. Navigate to the photo you want and click on it.
3. At the top right, there are 3 dots that you must click, then click "save to device
4. Open the Instagram app, start the upload process.

The only problem I could imagine you running into is that it won't be the first photo available. Depending on when the photo was taken you might have to scroll down to find it.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: google-photos
---


# Question
Title: Scripting app that can listen on notifications
I'm looking for an app that can run in the background, and listen for a silent notification from a different app (i.e. shows up on notification list but makes no sound) and once it appears, make a sound. Is there an app that I can script like that?

# Answer
> 0 votes
Download MacroDroid Pro from here, install it and open it. Back to settings and allow it in the following aspects:

1. Allow All Permissions about it in application settings
2. Allow Notification Access in notification settings
3. Allow Its Accessibility Service in accessibility settings
4. Allow Device Administration in security settings
5. Allow Usage Access in security settings and all other permissions it requests

Open it and

1. Click Add Macro
2. Notification Received Trigger and select which application you want notified for
3. Play Sound Action and select which sound you like notified for
4. Just leave an empty constraint since you want to be notified at all times or put instances to consider before the above happens
5. Save the macro and you're ready to go

The Macro Summary should look something just like this:

You could have solved your problem

---
Tags: notifications, scripts
---


title: WIFI connection with question mark

text:
# Question
Title: WIFI connection with question mark
My android phone connected with WiFi shows full signal. Whereas question mark appears on the signal mark and I'm unable to connect to the internet.

**Can anyone give me a solution to reconnect my internet?** So far I have not faced these problems.

# Answer
I suspect this scenario is caused **lack of internet connectivity** with respect to the wi-fi access point. In other words the device is properly connected to the Wi-Fi connection but the internet connectivity might be down due to one or a few cases.

This issue can be attributed to one or more issues:

1. **DNS resolving problem with your Internet service provider (ISP) or router.**

* It could mean that the route to your DNS addresses/servers is inaccessible at the given moment, so the problem is with your service provider and not your phone.
2. **Misconfigured DHCP/DNS settings**

* The normally results in the DNS server not responding to connection attempts. In addition faulty DCHP settings may cause the device to having difficulties getting IP Address assigned by the DCHP server.
3. **Problems connecting to Google servers (captive portal server)**

> Android tries to reach a file named `generate_204` on one of the Google servers and if there is no positive response, it means that there is no connection to the internet, and notification is generated

Also highlighted in the above discussion, the detection url differs between different Android versions.

> * `clients3.google.com/generate_204 check` (kitkat)
> * `connectivitycheck.gstatic.com/generate_204` (marshmallow)

---

# Possible fixes:

1. **Change DNS address of router/modem**

* Check DNS settings for both your router and your phone. Try to manually set DNS servers to Google's public DNS servers `8.8.8.8` and/or `8.8.4.4`.

---

2. **Rebooting device (with SIM card removed)**

You can try rebooting the device a proceedure similar to "clean boot" on PCs by following the proceedure:

* Toggle Airplane mode On/Off.
* Power off your phone ➡ Remove your SIM card ➡ Turn on your phone ➡ Power off your phone ➡ Re-insert your SIM card➡ Boot your phone.

---

3. **Bypassing wi-fi check during initialisation (new user creation)**.

One user was able to bypass this issue, creating a new user to bypass the connectivity check during initialisation. Here is their proceedure:

> * Reboot phone and wait until wi-fi is connected
> * Go to Settings and create a new user
> * Continue with user setup until you see "checking connection"
> * As soon as you see "checking connection", switch off your phone
> * Switch on your phone again
> * Toggle wi-fi, and the exclamation mark should disappear quickly
>
> *You may optionally remove the new user you just created*

---

The following methods need root:

4. **Changing captive portal server**

* Install a terminal app alternatively these commands can also be run via the `adb shell`.
    * Open the terminal app and run `su`.
    * Run `settings get global captive_portal_server`. This will show the current captive portal server. A "null" reply is usually the default.
    * Run `settings put global captive_portal_server YOUR_SERVER_ADDRESS`. You can add google.com as the captive portal server, `i.e settings put global captive_portal_server google.com`.
    * Run `exit` once to exit from su, then exit one more time to close the terminal.
    * Reboot the Android device. Will not work without a reboot.

---

5. **Disabling captive portal**

> * Since the culprit is a method `isCaptivePortal()` which access `clients3.google.com/generate_204` to test if a connection is deemed "usable". The page, as its name suggest, is designed to always return a `HTTP 204` status code. Based on this you have a couple options:

i. Kill `isCaptivePortal()` completely

* with set, run `adb shell su -c "settings put global captive_portal_detection_enabled 0"`

Note: *The down side is that isCaptivePortal() is actually useful to detect for example when a WiFi network requires login. If the request to the 204 page gets redirected to a login page (not a 204), the system will understand and display the exclamation mark as intended.*

ii. Change the target of `isCaptivePortal()`

* another workaround is replacing the Google host with a host that is accessible within the specific region. This host should also be returning `204` every time `/generate_204` is accessed.

i.e `adb shell su -c "settings put global captive_portal_server {alternate_host} "`

---

**Other methods**

**Using hosts**

* You can edit `hosts` to block the captive portal detection url thus bypassing the sending of the requests to captive portal server.

**References and acknowledgements**
> 2 votes

---
Tags: wi-fi
---


# Question
Title: I can't find the directory 100ANDRO on my pc
I was wondering why I can not find the folder 100ANDRO that contains the pictures that I take with the smartphone if I connect the phone with the pc. I premise that this happens only with the directory on the sdcard (that I set as main storage for the photos I take), in fact I have two of this directories , one on the phone storage, the other one on the sd, both are inside a main directory called DCIM. The problem is that if I use a file manager on the phone I can see every directory, differently on the pc the directory DCIM on the sd doesn't contain anything , consequently I can't see the picture I take apart from the case I move then to the internal storage. Do you have any idea ?

ps: I've already activated the option to show any hidden directory on the pc but nothing changed

# Answer
Camera photos should be in DCIM/Camera not in 100ANDRO, but however here is the thing that might help you: Go to settings\>apps and find apps "media storage" and "external storage" and clear cache and data for them, after that reboot your phone and wait up to 10 minutes for android to index all files, then connect phone to PC via USB and see if files are there.
> 0 votes

# Answer
I encountered this same issue where there are no files in DCIM folder on the sd card when connected to PC. I'm using a Sony Xperia Z3. I switched the connection mode from Transfer files(MTP) mode to Mass storage mode(MSC) and that enabled me to get to the files.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: internal-storage, external-sd, sd-card, images, internal-sd
---


# Question
Title: Where does android store the missed/incoming/outgoing calls?
I am looking for the database where android actually stores its call lists. My dialer currently does not store any call there and I want to debug the problem.

I already looked in `com.android.dialer/databases/dialer.db` but it does not seem to be the database I am looking for. In `/data/data` the only thing with call in the name is `callbackup`. I looked into the data of the contacts apps as well, but this seems to be the wrong place, too.

# Answer
> 2 votes
It's stored in `/data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/calllog.db`, under the "calls" table, in reverse time order (i.e. the last item in the table is the latest call in the log as displayed in the dialer).

---
Tags: calls
---


title: Lock on installing

text:
# Question
Title: Lock on installing
My brother is installing apps every time. I make an app lock password but he download the apk and install games. How I stop installation of apps

# Answer
MacroDroid here can save u: Let's be simple;

1. Download and install MacroDroid
2. Press Add Macro
3. Select Trigger to be Application Launched
4. Check non-launchable apps
5. Locate Package installer and select it
6. Go to Actions tab
7. Select Launch Home Screen
8. Go to constraints and chose any other thing you want it to consider before executing that action you configured above or just leave it blank
9. Give your Macro a name and save it
10. You're ready to go

Note: *give macrodroid all permissions possible as requested. The macro will look as below*
> 0 votes

---
Tags: installation, call-screening
---


title: Internal Storage - Negative Value

text:
# Question
Title: Internal Storage - Negative Value
I recently installed a new Custom Rom (Resurrection Remix) on my phone.

Since then, my Internal Storage has been acting weird. It's size and usage are shown as negative values as observed in the attached pictures.

Apps are installed in Internal and working fine, no problem there. But I'm not able to access the files or Download other stuff like pictures and music into my internal. I have to resort to external SD card for that.

# Answer
That is because you have MMC inserted while booting. This issue is commonly seen on Android devices running Android 7 nogaut. If you have AOSP for Android 7 then modify the below file: /frameworks/base/core/java/android/os/storage/StorageManager.java

Interchange the position of **mmc** and **sda** storage path

**Before**

```
private static final String[] INTERNAL_STORAGE_SIZE_PATHS = {
"/sys/block/mmcblk0/size",
"/sys/block/sda/size"
};

```

**After**

```
private static final String[] INTERNAL_STORAGE_SIZE_PATHS = {
"/sys/block/sda/size",
"/sys/block/mmcblk0/size"
};

```
> 0 votes

---
Tags: internal-storage, internal-sd
---


# Question
Title: Google Now launches when headphones are plugged in
I recently got a new LG G2 from T-Mobile and it worked perfectly fine but now When ever I plug in my headphones it randomly opens Google Now. It always says "speak to search" or it turns the music or what ever I am listening to maximum volume. And when my device is locked with my password it just repeats "Please unlock the device". Can someone help me?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Are you using the headphones that came with the phone? If not that could be why.

Even if they're genuine Apple EarPods or Beats - it looks as though the main issue is the middle button in the headphone is stuck while pressed in.

# Answer
> 1 votes
SO this has to do with the 3.5mm audio port on thje device.

With special headphones (the ones with controls on the wire) this feature gives you the ability to voice search without taking out the device. but for you (and me) it just bugs out.

basically the male headphone port is brushing up against the designated special area on the female port (top kek) and giving it the signal to do whatever (google now, modify volume, ect)

You cant fix it as of now, but if the device is in sleep mode or whatever google now wont open, and powerAmp has an option to disable volume modification.

and thats about it.

# Answer
> 0 votes
I used Titanium Backup to freeze the Google app responsible for Google voice search (I don't use it). Now everything is back to normal again, like I expect it too.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Go to Settings-\>Installed Apps. Find Google Now app or Google app (whichever one is annoying you). Either disable the app or deny the microphone permission. Thats it.

---
Tags: google-now, headphone-jack
---


# Question
Title: Can not boot, mount, wipe, change file systems on android
I had a Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2 with stock rom so i decided to flash a custom rom 7.1 Nougat by developer ishant (he has done a nice work).

I flashed it and it worked fine, but since it had some bugs like (dual sim not working and after logged out from Play Store, could not log back in because Play Store keep'd crashing). I decided to reinstall stock rom 4.4.x . But could not do that because i can not wipe, install, format, change file system or mount anything.

Every time i wanna try an option in TWRP Recovery its keep saying:

Unable to mount /system Unable to mount /data Unable to mount /cache Unable to mount /efs Unable to mount /preload.

Of course it does not boot.

On Wipe -\> (select anyone of: System, Data ect) -\> Repair or Change File System. It does nothing and every of this options shows: Present: No, Size: 0MB, Free: 0MB, Used: 0MB, Backup Size: 0MB.

I am able to connect via adb.

Any idea is appreciated.

Thank you

# Answer
Just flash the official ROM or the appropriate PIT file and custom recovery via Odin, then try booting the phone. It will work.
> -1 votes

---
Tags: samsung, samsung-galaxy-s-2, custom-roms, factory-reset, twrp
---


# Question
Title: Possibilty to flash a TWRP/CWM on a smartphone that doesnt have custom recovery?
I have a Huawei Y7 Prime that doesn't have any released custom recoveries. Is it possible to flash or even just boot TWRP/CWM for another smartphone (eg. for Huawei P8) on my Y7 Prime? Is it possible to do this in general? and if no, is there any way to root my device without custom recovery just by using fastboot or...?!

# Answer
Simple answer **NO**

It is not possible - recovery is device specific and unless it has been developed for your device, you are out of luck

You can try one-click apps that root, if it works for you (like Kingo root etc but be aware that they usually have their own set of problems)
> 1 votes

# Answer
Advanced answer, Yes:

If your device is Mediatek Oriented and you have it's stock ROM, the one to be flashed to the device using SP Flash tool,

1. You can install the SP Tool on computer
2. Extract the stock ROM
3. Locate the extracted ROM when choosing a scatter file from the tool
4. Don't panic here in this mode. SP Tool is by default at the Download Tab after loading the scatter.txt file since you might brick your phone
5. Switch the tab to Readback
6. Set the start adress as written at preloader.bin at the Download tab
7. Set the stop adress as written at data at the download tab and Start the readback
8. Switch your phone off and plug it on the computer(*Note I'm assuming SP flash tool is well configured alongside its VCOM drivers installed but I don't want to talk about them so as to be simple. Otherwise it won't be detected*)
9. Let the readback process complete
10. Locate the ROM dump in SP Flash Tool installation folder usually C:/Program Files
11. Download Readback extractor or alternatively (*use MTK\_Droid\_tools exe*) that will convert the dump into flashable images and locate from it the source dump.(Some extractors depend on this dump while some work independently but I have to include this because one might encounter an issue)
12. Start conversion.
13. It will prompt you when extracting the recovery.img whether to backup the stock recovery or to generate ClockWorkMod(CWM).img instead. Chose the later. It will be called cwm-automade.img or recovery.img in the final flashable ROM
14. Use this to have a more free recovery than the stock which is CWM recovery
15. Flash the recovery. img from fastboot or the SP Flash tool Download tab.

**Note:** *Do not tick preloader.bin when flashing anything otherwise you'll brick your device to a state it won't ever get alive again*
> 0 votes

---
Tags: twrp, huawei
---


# Question
Title: recent change to messages app for emoji and birthday cake icons
A recent update has these annoying ions show up in 1st grade reader font size when I go to the attachment mode, and I was trying to see if they can be either disabled entirely or at least moved to thebottom out of the way. I want the picture attachment back on top the way it used to be before the cartoon characters took over. The way it's set up is ridiculous looking. Is there any secret seeing to get rid of this?

# Answer
Root your phone. No need to worry And change these fonts from another device where they show well

```
/system/fonts/NotoColorEmoji.ttf
/system/fonts/AndroidEmoji.ttf

```

Set their permissions to `chmod 0644` *-rw-r--r-* They will be back to normal or if you can install twrp or any other custom recovery i can send you a whole Fonts.zip flashable via recovery to fix this issue
> 0 votes

---
Tags: stock-android
---


# Question
Title: How to install Magictricks from recovery mode?
I am trying to root my old OPPO F1s following the tutorial on this link.

I am stuck on step two of rooting using fastboot. When I enter the recovery mode and try to install the Magictricks.zip in my phone storage, it gives me the error message saying installation failed. I also tried many other tutorials providing different packages and each time I try to install them using recovery mode it just always fails. Currently, I haven't done anything that I can think of that may result in this failed installation cycle.

Any Idea how to install .zip on Oppo phones in recovery mode?

Also, I can't see SD card option in recovery mode while installing files.How can I get that as in most of the online tutorials and demos people do get this option? My phone configurations: Model: Oppo f1s A1601 Ram: 3GB Android: 6.0 and enough space in both SD card and phone internal.

# Answer
Try this Magisk app that I obtained from my friend's Repository which will help you to download Magisk.zip that you'll flash via custom recovery only and you'll be rooted

Note: If you haven't installed TWRP or CWM it won't install the zip. Configuring and using Fastboot are the basics you need to be and to flash the recovery though.

If new to these, read this guide here and get TWRP recovery from it
> 0 votes

---
Tags: 6.0-marshmallow, rooting, root-access
---


# Question
Title: find out when was my memory card removed from Samsung J5
My memory card of my work phone got stolen and i want to find out when was it stolen.

# Answer
Using the Android SDK. Connect your device (with USB-Debugging enabled) and, at a Terminal enter the following:

```
$ adb logcat -d > logcat.txt

```

The `-d` option tells adb to copy the entire File Log from the Android System. Because you seem to know how UNIX Systems work, I won't explain the rest of the command. A second option (if you are rooted, that is) is to install a Terminal Emulator on your Android device. Open the Terminal Emulator and enter the command:

```
$ logcat -d > /sdcard/my-log-file.txt

```

This will do the same as above (except you don't need a computer, and the file saves on your device`/SDcard`. Feel free to change the " `/sdcard/my-log-file.txt` " part to anything you like, but I strongly recommend you save it to either your external or internal storage - so in short: Save it to a location you can accsess without `#` (superuser) permission!

Answer courtesy of @Ankush
> 0 votes

---
Tags: 6.0-marshmallow, external-sd, logging
---


# Question
Title: Can an older Android phone using Android 4.4.2 act as a spam server?
First excuse my lack of knowledge in anything Android related.

I wanted to ask if there is any possibility that an un-supervised Android phone, older Samsung model, running Android 4.2.2, act as a rogue spam server on the network.

Reason I'm asking this is because I have a fairly secure environment at work, both server side and client side. Recently the IP has been blacklisted by SPAM trap servers, and I had no real explanation as to why it happened.

So I asked myself what changed? The network functioned like this for years and no such thing happened till now. As it happens somebody with an older phone logged in on the wifi network on the same day with the blacklist. So I though hmmm weird coincidence.

Bottom line: Can an Android phone act as a rogue SPAM sending server? And if so how can I track down the issue? Is there a complete AV solution for Android that can detect such malware?

Ty.

# Answer
This is absolutely possible for an Android phone to act as a spam server. There are plenty of security flaws in Android that make this a possibility, and creating a program / script to send spam is trivial. There is no complete solution, but there are any number of AV programs (available on play store) that could check the phone for virii.

That said, it's more likely the IP has been classified as part of a client/home user range, and has been blacklisted for that reason - ie nothing you have done, or that another device was compromised. If the network is highly secured then it should not matter what device is on it - SMTP should be blocked to the outside world - except through an appropriate gateway.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: security, networking, malware, spam
---


# Question
Title: How to remove a stored user name and password in Wifi Connection Settings?
I've cleared all stored WiFi connections but the password prompt seen in the screenshot still appears. That user name and password is actually part of a VPN connection I had. I've deleted that VPN connection too. The prompt persists. How can I remove that stored user name and password?

Pixel 2 Android 8.0.0. Security patch level: November 5, 2017.

# Answer
Changed `Autofill service` from `Autofill with Google` to `None`.
> 0 votes

# Answer
For me that seems like another third party application is rendering the UI (drawing over your settings app) for saved WiFi passwords since natively, forgetting a WiFi will delete and forget it's password and manual settings too. Go to settings, Apps:

and click the cogwheel icon on the top right corner,

click drawing over other apps.

Disable all apps. Return to you WiFi settings if it doesn't show, enable them one by one to note which application was doing that. Hope this helps you
> 0 votes

---
Tags: wi-fi, password
---


# Question
Title: Why is Maps using outrageous amounts of background data?
I just got three auto-top up notifications amounting to total of about $50 from my network carrier.

Upon checking data usage, I see that this month shot up to 5gb+ and the details show it was almost all due to Maps, (please refer to screenshot). The breakdown says 2.13 MB of foreground data and 5.15GB of background!!! The messages from my carrier were sent within a 35 minute window. This is expensive and outrageous. What's causing it and how do I prevent this?!!

I'm using Blu Lifemark 4G. It's an american company who had had security issues relates to Chinese interference but they said the new software releases fixed that. My android version is 5.1. Maps version: 9.67.1

# Answer
You can prevent it by activating "Restrict app background data" (seen in your second screenshot).

There is also the Datally app (from Google itself), which allows you to block internet access for different apps.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: google-maps, data-monitoring, background-data
---


title: S7 Edge second sim disappears randomly

text:
# Question
Title: S7 Edge second sim disappears randomly
I've got a dual-sim Galaxy S7 Edge (SM-G935FD) this spring and everything was fine until a week ago my second SIM started to disappear randomly. Basically I wake up the phone after a while and I see no indications of the second SIM: no signal bars and "No SIM card in slot 2" message in settings. Rebooting the phone sometimes solves it for a while -- the second SIM becomes visible and works as expected but after a few hours it disappears again.

Things that I have tried so far:

* wiping out cache partition
* forcibly setting second sim to "2G only"
* manually choosing mobile operators for both sim cards
* swapping sim cards -- problematic sim card would still disappear after a while, now from slot 1.
* putting the problematic sim card into another phone -- it works just fine, not disappearing at all
* factory reset

The issue still persists. Currently my first sim (the one which works well) is set to "auto (4g/3g/2g)", also mobile data goes through that card. My second sim (the problematic one) is set to "2g only", although setting to "auto (3g/2g)" gives same result.

Inspecting phone logs with `adb logcat` while the second sim is invisible hasn't revealed anything suspicious..

My software:

Android 7.0

ROM: G935FXXU1DQEJ

Build: NRD90M.G935FXXU1DQGN

# Answer
It appeared to be a bizarre SIM issue: after replacing the SIM I haven't seen such behavior for more than a month. It's weird that the SIM would fail sporadically and a reboot would fix it, also that it would happily work on other devices. Anyway, this is hopefully solved now.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: samsung, samsung-galaxy-s-7-edge, dual-sim
---


# Question
Title: Unable to make an outgoing call after calling *31# on Moto G
I have a Moto G (1st generation) mobile bought in India. When I tried to make my Caller ID hidden from this wikiHow article, I called `*31#` and after that, I couldn't make a call to anyone.

Then I tried and miraculously I could make a call by adding a prefix of `*31#` to any number.

Please help me out fixing this issue.

# Answer
I tried solutions from GSM Feature Codes but no help.

Called Motorola Customer Care and they told me to Factory Reset. I did it after backing up my data and now it works.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Just try `#31#` from your mobile, no need to do a factory reset. Please don't trust that forwarded message and all.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Dial #31# and call. After then it will start working outgoing calls.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: calls, dialer-codes
---


# Question
Title: Outlook accounts not showing in the Accounts setting page
A user came to me with an intermittent issue with his old handset. I replaced the handset but when it came to set up his outlook account the app wouldn't sync contacts as the option to sync contacts was missing from the outlook app. Everything else worked but that. I checked in the accounts page in settings and the account isn't displayed there. I re-installed the application and updated the phone but to no avail. I then tried adding the account in the accounts screen, the account was added no problem but still the account isn't showing in on that page. I try to re-add for the 3rd time and this time an error message pops up telling me that the account has already been added to this device. I then tried to set up the old device as I know that it was working on there before I set up the new device. Again the same issue occurs.

Does anyone else have this issue with outlook on android or any other email application on android?

As a last resort I have set up exchange activesync using the default email application but I would like to have the user back on outlook as all the support material we have references Outlook Android.

-Rezz

# Answer
> 1 votes
I had this happen and it was driving me nuts. I did finally solve it by deleting the Exchange account from the Outlook app, going to the Accounts menu and hitting Add Account, adding the Exchange Activesync account. THEN, go back to Outlook and add the account again. Outlook walked me through the entire process of adding the account, even though it theoretically existed. Having essentially added the same account both ways, though, it now shows up in the Accounts page and works in the Outlook app.

---
Tags: email, accounts, outlook, active-sync
---


# Question
Title: How to determine if the bootloader is locked
The end point is for me to root my S6 but I figured I cannot do that if I first do not find out whether the boot-loader is locked or not although I am convinced it is unlocked. I need reassurance as I am not in the position to buy a new phone.

During my research I came across adb and fastboot, tools used by developers for Androids and adb does work but fastboot I cannot seem to get to work.

I tried rebooting to bootloader but it just loads the phone OS up straight away. Tried booting to ODIN MODE, tried booting to download mode, etc.

How can I find out if the bootloader is locked? My current approach is using fastboot and running the fastboot oem device-info command.

# Answer
> 4 votes
There's no fastboot for Samsung devices - Download mode is the semi-equivalent, except that it's only accessible via Odin/Heimdall. You will need appropriate drivers to get the PC to recognize a device in Download mode.

Most Samsung phones come with their BL unlocked or unlockable (notable exceptions are AT&T/Verizon devices). To root these devices, turn on "OEM Unlocking" in `Settings - Developer options` (if the switch exists), find a custom recovery made for the device, and flash it with Odin/Heimdall, then finally flash SuperSU/Magisk. Alternatively, make a CF-Auto-Root package for your device and firmware version with firmware.mobi and flash it.

---
Tags: adb, fastboot, samsung-galaxy-s-6, odin
---


# Question
Title: How can I enable dictation in Android messaging (texting) apps?
How can I enable dictation (voice to text) in Android messaging (texting) apps?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Dictation is managed by Input Method when you have downloaded voice recognition offline data for your preferred language at settings, Language and Input, Google Voice typing, Offline speech recognition.

While using the standard keyboard, tap the microphone icon to start dictation.

Or of not available switch input method to google voice typing it will start recognition.

---
Tags: voice-recognition
---


# Question
Title: Prevent Chrome from opening certain links in certain apps
The Stack Exchange app is a good one but I don't like it, because whenever I install it, Google Chrome will open all links to Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange in the app rather than a new tab.

Can I make Chrome permanently ignore this app and open any SO/SE links itself?

Android 7.1.2, Google Chrome 62.0.3202.84

# Answer
Well, This is the way to do it:

1. Open the app info of stack exchange app in your phone.
2. Click on "Open by default".
3. In the next screen that appears, click "Clear Defaults".
4. That should give you a prompt whenever you click on an SO link.
5. Just select chrome and it will open in chrome only.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: applications, chrome-for-android
---


# Question
Title: Is there a way to take low resolution pictures on Android?
I have a Galaxy S5, and with the native camera app, the smallest possible picture size is a 2.4MB image at 2028x1152 pixels.

However, for the purposes of capturing images for flashcards I use in Ankidroid, that size is too large. The storage volume adds up quickly and the files are slow to move around the network.

What I really want is to take pictures in the realm of 640x480 pixels or so. I don't need high quality, I need small, quick, and disposable.

**Are there any camera apps, or any other methods, where I can take low resolution images?** My search of Google Play indicates almost all camera apps aspire to take the biggest, sharpest, highest resolution pictures possible.

# Answer
> 4 votes
Open Camera has plenty of options for specifying the resolution.

Look on the settings menu, then Photo settings. You can set it to 640x480 or even 352x288. You can also set the image quality, ie the level of JPEG compression. If you decrease the quality, it will give you smaller file sizes.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I can give you a good alternative. Since your biggest concern is resolution, you can try Photo Studio (free or paid (PRO version)). It allows you to edit and or export your photos in any resolution possible as desired, you can even alter the aspect ratio of your photos if you like. Through cropping if the phone doesn't put them in the right ratio. This will help you a lot in anything you wanna do. Good luck. It must save you

# Answer
> 0 votes
I think Resizeme Pro is what you are looking for in terms of *camera to final image to sharing* solution

* It allows you to take photos directly from your device camera
* You can set up the required size you want from the wide range of options or specify the custom size you want
* You can do basic editing functions like cropping etc and save
* On saving, it immediately props up the *direct share* menu to send it to your app or other ways

It's Pro but free for 3 days (that's what prompted me to download and then I recalled your question)

# Answer
> 0 votes
I use an alternative to Google Photos that has the ability to resize photos

There are two galleries which can do that:

In QuickPic the resizing is a bit easier if I recall correctly, currently I am using Simple Gallery.

---
Tags: camera
---


# Question
Title: Backup with root and restore without root
I have failed to backup and restore an app from my old to my new phone using this answer. The reason seem to be due to the app I want to backup is a "disallowed" type (`ALLOW_BACKUP:NO`) (I notice it later using Helium). First, it is strange that the answer linked did not mention that it only worsk for those app that are allowed to backup in their *Manifest*. Second, it seems that the only option is to do the backup with root, for instance by using Titanium. I don't mind to root my old phone to do the backup, but I would not like to root the new phone in which I want to restore the mentioned app. So is it posible to do the backup with root and then the restore without root, using for example titanium and Helium, respectively?

# Answer
> 2 votes
No, restoring the app-data from a backup of an app that has `allowBackup=false` will not work:

Helium uses AFAIR adb and if the app declares `allowBackup=false` you can neither create nor restore data of that app via `adb backup`.

Titanium does only work if the phone is rooted independently if you want to create or restore a backup.

The only chance to create a backup of an app with `allowBackup=false` is if the app provides an own backup/restore function within the app.

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Tags: backup, restore
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# Question
Title: How do I force timer volume on, regardless of Vibrate or Mute mode in Android 7.0?
I always keep my phone on Vibrate.

That being said, I've never had this issue before until I had to get a new phone on 7.0. Previously, the phone I had from 6.0 through the upgrade to 7 would always make noise with the timer in the default Clock app while set to Vibrate. Now that I have a new phone (same model), it's never made noise with the timer unless my phone's sound is on.

The same questions were asked for 4.4 and 5.1, so this will be the 7.0 version.

# Answer
> 0 votes
This is no longer possible with the default Clock app in Android 7.0. If you set your phone to vibrate, there is no way to enable notification volume which the timer depends on.

I removed the Clock app shortcuts everywhere on my phone and started using Alarm Clock Xtreme for timers.

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Tags: audio, 7.0-nougat, alarm, clock, vibration
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# Question
Title: I was recording and video on my phone when the battery died, how can I recover the video file?
I read the other questions I could find. This is completely different. My question is **NOT about finding the file**.

**The file is on my phone**. It is the correct size. It shows as an mp4 with the right icon on windows. It has an mp4 suffix. It's 22+MB so it's there. It will not play in MS Media Player or with VLC player. It doesn't show up on the phone itself in the gallery, but it's there when I connect the phone to my laptop.

I was recording the video, my battery died, the phone shut off while I was recording.

There are many programs on the internet that claim to fix video files, but I'm afraid to download any of them because I do not want to get a virus.

My phone is an HTC EVO 3D. My carrier is Sprint. My laptop is a Samsung running Windows 7. I recorded it regular mode not in 3D mode.

How do I **play** this file? How do I **fix it**? What should I do? If there's a piece of software I should download to my laptop to fix it, what is a good reputable site where I won't get malware/virus?

# Answer
> 5 votes
I had the same promblem. A solution which worked for me was an app "MP4Fix", which you can get in google play for free. It repaired my video in a few sec and placed it in different folder (it kept corrupted video in the same place and also created new repaired one). I know this info might be too late for you but it might help some others.

# Answer
> 2 votes
To expand on Martin's answer, yes you can use MP4Fix. However it is very strict what the video is made with. I found I needed to set the recording settings in order for the mp4 video to be in a supported format and not get error 'Not Supported'

Video Encoder H264 Recorder Format MPEG\_4 File Format MP4 Audio Encoder AAC

Additionally I set video resolution, framerate, and bitrate.

I was then able to recover video.

FYI: The Recording App is SVR but others are named the same. Found using: secret video recorder (free) tristan https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tristan.enhanced\_camera

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Tags: data-recovery, video, htc, video-recording, htc-evo-3d
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