# Question
Title: MTP mode instead of charging with plugged in wall charger
My Galaxy Tab P1000 was charging when it fell down.

I tried plugging it in again to continue charging but the battery icon now appears with a cross mark and instead the MTP mode initializes. How can I get the Galaxy Tab to charge normally again?

# Answer
Alright guys, I had the same problem as you are experiencing. When I plugged my tablet to the wall charger it just showed a lightning icon crossed with a red cross, it wrote mtp connected and did not charge. I have read some forums about this problem there are only a few of them. I have decided to reset to the factory settings, since I was desperate at this point, I did not even hope. Then i solved my problem just by checking the connection between the box u put in the wall plug and the cable. Honestly I wanted to throw it away but luckily i did not, it works fine now.

Hope this could help you or even if it does not I just wish you good luck with solving it.
> 2 votes

# Answer
I just blew into both the port on my tab for charging, and the port on the cable. Now, it charges normally again! Go figure!
> 2 votes

# Answer
Most of the time this problem is being caused by dust, dirt, grime, or some other type of contamination coating one of the usb pins on the inside of the usb port. Easiest fix is to blow some compressed air into the usb port repeatedly until the dust/dirt is blow clear. You can also use "Contact/Control Cleaner & Lubricant" available from Radio Shack. Remove the phone battery and hold the phone upside down while using the compressed air or cleaner/lubricant to blast the usb port clean. Wipe off any residue then re-install the battery. Power up your phone and it will now function properly.
> 2 votes

# Answer
The behavior you are seeing is consistent with plugging the tablet's USB cable into a standard USB port.

If you plug the tablet into the "official" power adapter, you should see neither the red "X" on the battery icon, nor the MTP scanning update.

The tablet will only reliably charge (and thus no red "X") when plugged into the special wall adapter, because the adapter is modified to deliver a higher current output than a computer's USB hub or a generic USB power adapter will deliver. When the tablet detects that it is on a standard USB connection it displays the red "X" on the battery icon as the tablet may not gain battery charge as fast as it uses it (the tablet's screen and network connections together can drain more than a standard USB connection can supply).

The MTP scanner is the media scanner that runs when the tablet thinks it might be plugged into a computer. I believe this is so it can quickly copy media off to your desktop, but I'm not sure on the details. Basically, its another symptom of using a vanilla USB port.

See this question for more details: How much power does a Galaxy Tab 10.1 charger need to supply?
> 1 votes

# Answer
I had the same problem until I tried one method by accident.

1. Connect the tab with the relevant port.
2. Now **slowly** connect the USB side of the connector to the USB port in your computer (remember to be slow enough till 50 percent of the connector is pushed in).
3. Your tablet will now start charging normally using the PC.
4. Now you can push in the remaining half of the connector into the slot.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: charging, samsung-galaxy-tab
---


title: croatian symbols

text:
# Question
Title: croatian symbols
I wonder how I include croatian symbols into my Android device. I searched in the internet, but I can't find any useful information about this topic. Is it even possible to install "language packages" on a Android device, meaning that not the system language gets changed, but the range of possible symbols gets extended? (I'm running Android version 4.0.3 on a Samsung Galaxy SII)

# Answer
> 1 votes
I found a nice solution with

> Hacker's Keyboard

It's free available in the Google Store and you can choose between many keyboard languages. The nicest thing for me is that, even if I choose the croatian language, I can still easily write german umlauts, which I need as I live in Switzerland.

---
Tags: languages, localization
---


# Question
Title: Can you reprogram the motorola-droid-razr-m screen buttons? Does it require Rooting?
I'm not a big fan of the Droid-Razr-M's screen buttons (missing the menu and search buttons, but includes a Programs button (which is a waste b/c you can long hold the Home button for that).

Since those buttons are actually on the screen, can you reprogram them? Would it require rooting the phone?

# Answer
I'm not sure this would be helpful, but I love this app called Button Savior, which provides on-screen access to many of the functions you would find only via hard buttons. You can activate it by a simple swipe, or by pressing a very translucent button that's always on the screen. Some of the functions do require that you have rooted your phone, but not all.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: buttons, motorola-droid-razr
---


# Question
Title: Flashed my phone without rooting and now it doesn't work
I have an international Samsung Galaxy SIII i.e. GT-I9300.

Few days after the official upgrade to v4.1, it started freezing. So I removed the battery and inserted again and it did not boot and was stuck at the boot logo. It doesn't start with the recovery mode either but it does start in download mode.

So I flashed it with odin to leaked Galaxy SIII v4.1.2 build.

Now it shows 'custom binary count to one'. But when I boot it, it still doesn't start. (same issue; it gets stuck in the boot logo).

I'd also like to mention that the phone was **not** rooted prior to flashing.

I don't care about data now, I just need my phone back.

# Answer
> -2 votes
Try to flash another firmware. Find it here , it has flashing guides too. Follow the instructions strictly

Tell us about your success or your failure :)

---
Tags: 4.1-jelly-bean, samsung-galaxy-s-3, bootloader, system-freeze
---


# Question
Title: Unlocked HTC One X (AT&T) Jelly Bean update
I just got my HTC One X from AT&T and have been using it unlocked on T-Mobile. Eventually, will I get the Jelly Bean update, or will I need to root?

# Answer
OTA updates come also with carrier modifications. So no, you will not
> -1 votes

---
Tags: ota-update, htc-one-x
---


title: How to confirm if motherboard is broken

text:
# Question
Title: How to confirm if motherboard is broken
This is in reference to my other question.

My phone was not working so I showed it to service center guy and he said the motherboard is broken and needs to be replaced.

I can flash custom ROMs to the phone but they are not also booting up.

So I just want to confirm does that really mean my motherboard is broken and needs to be replaced?

# Answer
> 0 votes
If it starts to boot (goes to the boot logo/animation) or Recovery/Download mode at least tries to load, then the motherboard is NOT damaged.

Your device is soft-bricked, and just needs to have a compatible ROM flashed, and your userdata erased for your device to be fully functional again.

The person is the service centre doesn't know what hey is talking about (I wouldn't trust those people - they just want your money).

---
Tags: samsung-galaxy-s-3, boot-loop
---


# Question
Title: 2 android tablets have the same MAC address
I have bought 2 DGM android tablets (OS - Google Android 4.0) and whilst setting them both up (at the same time) the wifi connection kept dropping.

I checked the MAC address so I could assign them a static IP address from the router, but noticed that they were both the same on the tablets.

I'm no whizz when it comes to IT (I know the basics), but I've searched the web for what can be done, and I don't understand any of it - BusyBox, rooted tablet, MAC Address spoofing.

Can someone please help me out - or point me to some (easy to understand and follow) tutorials?

Thanks a lot!

# Answer
You didn't name your device -- but most likely got some China import. There were some readings a little time ago about this issue. Normally, a MAC address should be *unique* to the device -- the producer probably wanted to save some license costs...

Nevertheless, that background isn't going to help you much. There are some apps available on the Playstore which allow you to change the MAC address (search the playstore for "mac-address" to find them all), like e.g. Wireless Mac Changer or Set MAC address. Note, however, that all of them require root access on your device.

The only alternative known to me would be to return the device(s), explaining your reason (see above), and ask for an appropriate replacement.
> 1 votes

# Answer
This will depend but almost guarantee requiring the devices to be rooted in order to manipulate the hardware.

The *only caveat emptor* is, this needs *root* and *busybox* installed, and that the wifi is active:

1. Plug the usb cable to the device, and invoke this, `adb shell`.
2. Switch to superuser, i.e. `su`
3. Invoke this - `busybox ifconfig wlan0 down` to bring down the wifi device.
4. Invoke this - `busybox ifconfig wlan0 | grep HWaddr`, see below for Fig. 2a
5. The double X as shown in the captured output below in Fig. 2a, is the actual MAC address, I have this deliberately hidden as not to show it especially on the internet.
6. Invoke this - `busybox ifconfig wlan0 hw ether 00:11:22:33:44:55`, that should change the MAC address of that wifi device. (This part can be extremely hardware dependant in the aspect of, *if the wifi device can allow this* \- Also if the kernel has the support for that wifi chipset, if that fails - a very cryptic message will appear - *ip: SIOCSIFHWADDR: Operation not supported on transport endpoint* meaning that the address for MAC spoofing is dis-allowed!)
7. If step 6 works, then to bring up the Wifi device again, invoke this `busybox ifconfig wlan0 up`, profit!

**2a:**

```
sh-4.1# busybox ifconfig wlan0 | grep HWaddr
wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

```
> 1 votes

---
Tags: mac-address
---


# Question
Title: Which will work better on t-mobile: Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-i9300 or GT-i9305?
> **Possible Duplicate:**
> Can I use my device on a different carrier?

Both are international models, and I'm looking to buy an unlocked one off of Amazon. However, I'm not too sure if they're compatible with T-Mobile.

I currently have a prepaid standard SIM Card, and although I only have unlimited text and call at the moment, I may get a 4G Data Plan in the near future.

Which one of these models is compatible with T-Mobile's 4G service? I've read that the i9300 isn't, but I couldn't obtain any information about the i9305 (which is the 4G LTE version).

# Answer
While this is sort of a "shopping" question, it is also a question about if these phones will work on t-mobile's network.

T-Mobile does not (currently) have LTE. So if the device has LTE, you will not use the LTE chip.

Will the devices work on T-Mobile? Yes. Will you get the T-Mobile 4G speeds? Well that depends on what bands (or frequencies) the device supports.

T-Mobile has support for the following bands for their 4G netowork:

* 1700 MHz | UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+
* 1900 MHz | UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+
* 1700 MHz | LTE (this is the band they will use when they roll out LTE)

According to the Spec Sheet on Amazon of the i9300:

* 3G Network | HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
    + AFAIK, internationally, HSPA+ is not considered 4G, so based on this, yes this phone will give you T-Mobile 4G

The i9305 on the other had, according to Amazon, does not appear to have the bands available for T-Mobile:

* 4G Network: LTE 800 / 1800 / 2600
* 3G: HSDPA 850 / 900 / 2100

Now, what I am actually making here is just an assumption, because it supports the bands that T-Mobile supports. I cannot say with 100% certainty that it will operate with their 4G speeds.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: samsung-galaxy-s-3, 4g
---


title: Other apps to manage permissions?

text:
# Question
Title: Other apps to manage permissions?
I used to use - and loved - LBE Privacy Guard which allowed you to revoke specific permissions from specific apps.

Ever since AT&T *finally* pushed out Jelly Bean for the S3 though, it no longer works, and puts my phone into a endless reboot loop.

Searching in the market, I couldn't find any other app that does this (though the are plenty that just let you *SEE* the permissions of all your apps).

Anyone know of another app that does the same thing as LBE?

# Answer
> 7 votes
*LBE* works on JellyBean -- just not the version you install from the Playstore. The boot-loop problem is a known issue (so nobody can understand why the developer did not even place a note on the app's playstore page).

On XDA you can find multiple threads discussing this issue, and at least one of them also holds modified versions of *LBE* to download. Take e.g. a look at:

Alternatives to *LBE* would include:

# Answer
> 0 votes
A few apps for you to try out:-

---
Tags: 4.3-jelly-bean, permissions
---


title: Vector Graphics Illustrator

text:
# Question
Title: Vector Graphics Illustrator
I am sorry if this is not the right place, but I didn't know where else to ask and I can't find an acceptable answer anywhere online.

I'm considering getting a tablet and would really prefer an Android. However, the most critical requirement for me is the vector graphics illustrator. I am a mathematician and make a lot of drawings for presentations and papers using Inkscape (an open source version of Adobe Illustrator). The iPad has an app called Inkpad (which is not the same as Android's Inkpad), which is just like Inkscape, only it also allows the user to draw a curve freehand and convert it to a Bezier curve.

I was wondering if there was anything similar for Android and if so, how it compares in functionality and image quality to Inkscape/Inkpad for iPad.

Thank you!

# Answer
There is an application called **Infinite Design** available in both free & paid versions. It will allow you to export to SVG for editing in your favorite graphics editor. It's been tested and works in Adobe Illustrator and Inkscape (paid version only).

Another application is called **Simplector**, again available in both free & paid (pro) versions:

I cannot comment on the functionality & image quality compared to similar iPad applications.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: graphics
---


# Question
Title: What are the Android 4.0.x Ice Cream Sandwich Easter Eggs?
I heard that there are some Easter eggs hidden in ice cream sandwich version.

How can I view the Easter eggs hidden in my android device and how can I view them? I'm using Android 4 ICS.

# Answer
Go to `Settings->About Phone` (this is the last menu item in the settings menu) and find the version number menu item in the menu.

**1. Find the android**

Quickly tap the android version number several times and an android will appear on your screen:

**2. Find the *nyan-droid***

Press and hold the android n the screen and it will grow. Keep holding it and at the end a set of androids wearing ice cream sandwiches will fly across your screen, like so:

**Enjoy!!**
> 8 votes

---
Tags: 4.0-ice-cream-sandwich, settings, easter-egg
---


title: Hide contacts with only email address

text:
# Question
Title: Hide contacts with only email address
When clicking on Phone -\> Logs, I have hundreds of contacts presumably from Gmail. Is there a way to hide all google contacts, and only show ones I've manually entered (SIM or other storage)? I'd like to only see contacts with phone numbers when using the Phone.

My phone is a S2 (Tmobile), if it matters.

# Answer
You have not mentioned your Android version, if it is Android 4.0+, I fear you cannot do this. There's no option to show contacts with phone numbers only in `People` app that is included in 4.0+.

If you are on GingerBread or earlier versions, you have a setting something like this:

```
Contacts app - > Menu -> Display Options -> Only contacts with phone numbers

```

I am talking about stock Android apps, your manufacturer / ROM builder may have a tweak depending on what ROM are you running. I don't see a chance, but still a possibility.

See this similar question.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: contacts
---


title: Image instant uploading isn't working

text:
# Question
Title: Image instant uploading isn't working
Ever since I upgraded my Google+ app on Friday (3.3.0.40049528) one of my favorite features, Image Instant Upload, is not working.

One of the big changes in this release was that instant upload could now upload full size images, rather than limiting them to 2048px.

* I have plenty of available storage (4GB out of 5GB available)
* I have force stopped the Google+ app as well as cleared the data at least once
* The phone (Verizon Galaxy Nexus) has been restarted a couple of times
* I am using the stock camera app for my testing
* The settings were not changed when I updated Google+, but I have confirmed that Instant Upload is set to allow photo uploads on wifi as well as mobile data. I do not have "upload only when charging" turned on, and there is plenty of battery available.

Any ideas? Have I got a bug that needs an update?

# Answer
> 2 votes
In `Settings->Accounts and Sync->Your Google Account` make sure Google Photos is selected

This is in `Settings->Google` in 4.x.

EDIT: I just checked, and reinstalling the Google+ all fixed this. Uninstall the app, then install it again.

You then need to go into the settings menu and enable instant upload.

# Answer
> 0 votes
What I ended up doing was selecting the "Upload all" option under the Google+ settings for Instant Upload. This uploaded some photos that hadn't already been uploaded and seems to have kick-started the process.

---
Tags: camera, google-plus, google-plus-photos
---


# Question
Title: Is it "safe" to provide users with the apk file?
I was wondering, if I have an app that is available on the Play Store, is it "safe" to provide a direct download of the apk file to someone (either signed with the proper keys, or just debug-version)?

"safe" in the sense of *does the marketplace do anything special to the apk to protect the source code, signing keys, etc.?*

Reason I ask is a user of my app has said that their Marketplace/Play Store is no longer working and therefore can not upgrade the app - so asked me to email them the apk file.

The app is a free app, so on the surface I can't see any issues - though just wanted to double check.

Although this raises the question - the apks of the apps you download from the marketplace (paid and unpaid) are on your phone. Are these apks (on the phone) somehow unique to the phone/google account? Otherwise, what stops one from buying an app and passing that apk on to others?

# Answer
There is nothing dangerous about it, and this is done occasionally when the store isn't accessible.

In response to your second question, apks are not unique - and can be easily transferred to another device, or the internet. This is the base of android app piracy.

When you upload the APK to Google Play, GPlay does nothing to it. It is up to the developer to obfuscate the code, to prevent decompilation.
> 15 votes

# Answer
As Liam already pointed out, there's no danger involved for the developer. If one wants to grab the `.apk` for distribution, that's easily possible using apps like AppMonster, which can back up the `.apk` file to SD card. No extra protection from Google's side -- except users might feel more safe installing it from a "trusted source" (and they are right about that at least when it comes to unknown/new devs, as the *Google Bouncer* adds a protection layer against malware, see Android and Security).

In fact many developers hold their apps `.apk` files available on their project site for good reasons. One you already mentioned in your question: Playstore might have (temporary) problems. Moreover, not all devices are able to access the Playstore (and thus could not use your app if it would be available only there). Another good reason would be to provide "Beta versions" this way, so as a dev you can get early feedback without running the risk of negative feedback on the Playstore.

**To sum up:** At least for free apps, I'd even *recommend* to keep a direct download link to the `.apk` available, if possible.
> 15 votes

---
Tags: google-play-store, security, apk
---


# Question
Title: l2_hsic prevents my device from Deep Sleep. How to fix it?
I have installed BetterBatteryStats and CPU SPY, because I noticed that I had a faster than normal battery consumption when the tab was left alone.

I made a 30 mins test Wifi OFF, Flight Mode On, where the 29 mins of them showed me l2\_hsic under Kernel Wakelock -\> Since Unplugged.

Does anyone know what causes this and how to prevent it ?

Thank you.

( I am running Stock ICS 4.0.4 rooted)

# Answer
> 1 votes
As Flow already pointed out in his comment to the question, that is a known bug. However, if you're affected, there's at least a kind of "ugly work-around", as described in the article How to solve battery issues after ICS update in your Galaxy Note. Their conclusion states:

> Anyway, this is a kernel bug in ICS, we have to wait for new update. The solution for this is: **shutdown your Note, peel off the back cover, remove the battery; hold the battery for more than one min, put the battery back, put back the back cover; start the phone.** Then, everything goes back to normal. **Reboot your phone will NOT solver this issue, at least for me.**
> Next time, when you encounter this issue again, try the procedure again.

They further write that, if you once encountered this bug and worked-around this way, *it seems it is hard to hit the bug again* -- so with some luck, you will only have to do this once.

And yes, I saw that article refers to the Galaxy Note. But talking about a *kernel bug in ICS*, and your tablet being from the same manufacturer, chances are pretty good this solution will apply to your tablet as well.

---
Tags: kernel, wakelock
---


# Question
Title: Why did /sdcard/ turn into /sdcard/0/ with 4.2?
I've never seen this before so I'm assuming that it happened when I upgraded to 4.2: I'm fairly certain that `/sdcard/` used to take me straight to my sdcard, but now when I go to that path (in CWM recovery for example) I need to go to `/sdcard/0`, there's also `/sdcard/legacy` knocking about suddenly.

What are these folders and why have they appeared?

# Answer
> 24 votes
That has to do with the Multi-User feature enabled with JellyBean 4.2 (not 4.1). In order to handle separate accounts, parts of the directory structure had to be changed. `/sdcard/legacy` e.g. always points to the currently logged-in user's sd card directory.

I currently cannot find the document where I read the details, so I cannot link any source. But with the above in mind, it's easy to guess that `/sdcard/0` will most-likely be the device owners (or "first users" -- the "first user" always becomed the "device owner", only this user can create additional accounts) sd card, and so on. I will add a link to a source as soon as I can find it.

**EDIT:** One of the pages I got that idea from is AndroidNext. 1droid gives a different explanation when it comes to sd card:

> With Android 4.2, Google introduced multiple users as a new feature. In order to accommodate multiple users, Google is now giving each user a their own folder for storage. If you upgraded to 4.2 from 4.1, then the 4.2 ROM will look for a certain file in /data to determine whether it needs to migrate all of your files to the new multi-user data structure. By default, 4.2 migrates all of /data/media to /data/media/0.
>
> A problem arose though with custom recoveries. A custom recovery retains the /data/media folder during a factory reset. When you factory reset and then boot a 4.2 ROM again, the 4.2 ROM will migrate everything in /data/media again. It will migrate your files every time you factory reset. This multiple migration is what resulted in some people having their files moved to /sdcard/0 or even /sdcard/0/0 etc.

So it has in fact to do with the new Multi-User feature -- one way or the other.

---
Tags: sd-card, file-system, 4.2-jelly-bean
---


# Question
Title: Why does my phone slow down after using internet and installing apps?
I have Samsung Galaxy Y. I think that when I use wireless and installing apps, not immediately but after a while the phone slows down considerably.

When it happens I must restart and when it turn on, then continues to operate normally.

I don't know if this is caused by some applications I have installed or some other problem. When it occurs I try to free RAM memory with Samsung's task manager or fast reboot, but it doesn't help.

After I read some of your topics, I don't use task killer anymore. It happens to me two or three times a day!

Why my phone slows down, and only turning it off/on seems to solve the issue?

# Answer
"Getting slow" can be caused by a couple of different things -- separately or combined. It could be an app hogging your CPU, or the system running low on free RAM. It's even possible that some service runs havoc, blocking resources (though this one would be a bit harder to track).

## Easy tracking for beginners (and for free)

There are several possibilities to find out what's going on. The easiest is to install e.g. OS Monitor and, when the device gets slow, starting this app and taking a look at the running processes. First order them by CPU usage: Is there any app constantly using 50% or more CPU? If so, you probably found the evil-doer. Next order them by RAM usage: Any app "eating" extra-ordinarily much?

Don't worry to much about how much RAM is free. There's no such thing as "unused RAM being a good thing" -- neither on Android nor on Linux. Free RAM will be used to speed things up, e.g. by caching files. Of course, if more RAM is used, those caches get freed.

## Monitoring the system

If the easy approach does not help, you need heavier armament -- and a little background knowledge to use such. There's e.g. SystemPanel which can monitor your system. More useful is the paid version, which can do so in the background, and also saves its monitored data -- so you could even check after a reboot. An alternative helper-app is System Tuner (here again the paid app is more useful). Also, Tracing Memory might be worth a look (can't hurt, it's free).

## Found it?

When you found out the bad app, actions depend on what it is. Is it an app that came pre-installed, or even belongs to the Android system, you e.g. could not simply remove it. Check the app's configuration, contact the developer, or search the web for known trouble with the evil-doer are always good steps to take. Of course, once you found the culprit, you can always come back here and ask a more specific question -- and with the background information you collected, we probably can give you better hints to solve the issue.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: performance, bugs
---


# Question
Title: How to know if a custom ROM uses existing swap partition
Recently I switched my custom ROM installed on my HTC Desire to a 4.1.2 based ROM (PARANOIDANDROID based).

The ROM works fine but sometimes the device has serious lag of several seconds. I assume that this may be caused by a SWAP partition I created once on my SD-card but that was never used by my previous ROMs.

How can I find out if the SWAP partition is used or not?

# Answer
Simply get yourself a terminal app (a good choice would be Android Terminal Emulator), start it, and enter the command `free`. The output then should look like this:

```
             total       used       free     shared    buffers
Mem:        487344     474312      13032          0      42224
-/+ buffers:           432088      55256
Swap:             0          0         0

```

This example is from my *Motorola Milestone 2*, and you can see: it does *not* use any swap: "total" available swap space is "0". If your device would use swap, at least the numbers for "totals" and one of "used" or "free" should be \> 0.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: custom-roms, swap
---


title: Android connected to Car system

text:
# Question
Title: Android connected to Car system
How can connect my android app to car system for example to get "Level fuel" information or any others info!

# Answer
All modern cars have CPU which measures and controls few parameters of its engine. These CPU(s) will have an interface socket (looks like SCART connector) with which issues are diagnosed at service center. There is a special hardware which goes into this socket and can transmit engine parameters through Bluetooth. Google Play Store has an app called Torque which when installed in an Android phone, can receive such parameters and displays on the screen.

I am not too sure whether the OBD device can detect fuel level, but it does sense a lot of other engine related parameters like HP torque etc.
> 5 votes

# Answer
You would like to try Fuelio which advertise to give fuel and other info that cost money. I haven't tested it, however.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: obd
---


# Question
Title: I lost my Android smartphone. Play Store tells me that someone has inserted a SIM card. How can I find out the phone number?
I lost my Samsung Galaxy S, which was signed into Google Play. Now, Play Store has identified that someone has inserted another SIM card with a different service provider. Is there anyway I can find out the phone number of the inserted SIM?

# Answer
Sorry to see you losing your phone. Have you seen the question "Can I remotely launch an app on my android phone?" in which @jlehenbauer has answered mentioning an app called AndroidLost. You can try this if you are sure you have your lost phone still uses your Google Account.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Sounds like a stolen phone (theft of mislaid property). Report it to the police. In the US, if you have the esn/meid they can compel the carrier to give them all the info about who's using the phone. I'm not sure how these things work in other countries.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: security, lost-phone
---


title: How to track reboots in Jelly Bean

text:
# Question
Title: How to track reboots in Jelly Bean
Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Verizon) with Android 4.1.1 (unrooted).

I seem to be having unusually frequent reboots of my phone; sometimes multiple times in a day. Certainly much more frequent than with Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.4).

Additionally, my battery life seems to be lower since the upgrade from 4.0.4. (It might be my imagination, but it might be running hotter than I remember, too.)

I've been looking for some common denominator but I'm baffled.

What can I do to try to find out what is causing these crashes?

(No suggestions that require rooting, please.)

# Answer
> 1 votes
System Tuner looks like it could help you figure out what's going on. Excerpts from the app's description:

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

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

---
Tags: 4.1-jelly-bean, reboot, crashes
---


title: Trim list of sharing apps in ICS

text:
# Question
Title: Trim list of sharing apps in ICS
Things like sharing photos come to mind. When I view a photo and click Share, the list can get pretty bloated depending on what apps I have installed. Is it possible to trim the list of apps down or disable them from appearing on this list?

Annoyingly, many of my most useful and frequented apps have been bumped down on the list and I now have to scroll to select an app.

# Answer
> 2 votes
You might want to take a look at Andmade Share -- an app that claims to replace your share list with a completely customizable one, as the following screenshots show:

As you see, you not only can get rid of unwanted entries -- but also re-organize the order of those left, so you can have your most-used on top.

---
Tags: share-menu
---


# Question
Title: Auto sync only when connected to a specific wifi network
I am getting rather low battery life when using auto-sync on 3G. I have wifi in college and at home, so I'm looking for a way to enable auto sync only when connected to those 2 specific wifi networks.

# Answer
That's easily accomplished using Tasker. If you don't know, *Tasker* is the most complete automation solution for Android. It doesn't come for free (5 Euro -- but you can get a free trial on their homepage), but is definitly worth the price. Just take a look at the Tasker UserGuide for a full description.

*Tasker* combines conditions and tasks to profiles. In your case, the *Task* would be something like:

**Task AutoSync:**

* Auto-Sync: On

You will have two *Conditions*, one for each profile (*Tasker* always connects conditions by AND, so you need two different profiles:

* **Profile Home:**
    + *Condition:* Wifi Connected (add your home network's details)
    + *Task:* AutoSync
* **Profile College:**
    + *Condition:* Wifi Connected (add your college's network's details)
    + *Task:* AutoSync

Now, when you're not connected to any of these networks, switch off AutoSync manually *once* (you won't have to repeat this). Next time you connect to one of the two networks, *Tasker* turns AutoSync on -- and resets it to the previous state (off) as soon as you are disconnected.

If *Tasker* is too heavy for you, I'm pretty sure there are other automating tools which can accomplish this simple task (Llama - Location Profiles for example). But now that you've got the idea, you will find the related app fitting you.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: wi-fi, sync, settings, 3g, battery-life
---


# Question
Title: How to make "poor man's roaming" by proxying cell calls to SIP or Skype?
What applications should I use to make the Android device to forward calls from cell network to SIP or Skype and back?

One device ("Home") is expected to be left at home, serving as proxy; other device ("Travel") is just using data connection to connect to the first device, so it works like this:

1. Someone is calling you using cell network.
2. Home device receives the call and calls Travel using SIP.
3. Travel device sees the incoming SIP call.
4. You answer the call.
5. Home device is proxying between SIP and cell network for you until you drop the call.

How to do it? How to workaround greedy cell providers?

# Answer
> 1 votes
There is an opensource application Sipdroid, which theoretically could be modified to do proxying. But, judging from the poor general Android SIP experience, I'd think it would be very unreliable solution.

Easier way to workaround greedy cell providers seems to set up an IP PBX on the home computer, or get a free account at freepbxes.org and get a cheap SIP-connected phone number to eventually route your calls thru while using your "Travel" device's SIP connection to terminate calls.

---
Tags: skype, proxy, sip, roaming
---


# Question
Title: How can I set my volume to be beyond 15 on my samsung galaxy S?
> **Possible Duplicate:**
> How can I make my Samsung Galaxy Nexus volume go louder than what stock allows?

The volume on my media music player sounds very low on my headphones. Wondering if anyone knows a way on how to increase the set volume from 15 to 30.

# Answer
There are several apps allowing you to boost your volume above the set limit -- simply search the playstore for "volume booster". One examples would be Speaker Boost.

Without "external help" you also could try playing with your Equalizer (if there's any such pre-installed on your device -- otherwise you might get it at the playstore as well).
> 1 votes

---
Tags: samsung-galaxy-s, settings, volume-control
---


# Question
Title: Can I route a call via SIP based on a phone number?
My Android 4.0.4 phone supports SIP. However, the options when to use the "Internet calling" are very limited: "For all calls", "Only for Internet calls", "Ask for each call".

I would like to use Internet (SIP) calls for all calls outside of my area code (e.g. all international and long-distance calls should go via SIP, and local calls should go via my regular voice account).

Is there any application, patch or tweak that can help me with that? My phone is rooted.

# Answer
Csipsimple indeed does the job if you want to use it as your SIP client. If you prefer the built-in SIP client, try the Advanced Dialer app.
> 5 votes

# Answer
You can do that with a program called CSipSimple. It let's you customize not only whether certain calls are routed, through a Sip provider, but which Sip provider as well. With CSipSimple, the filters are based on regular expressions so there's a lot of flexibility.
> 2 votes

# Answer
**Sipdroid** has routing capabilities while also providing basic bluetooth headset support which CSipSimple still lacks.

I've been able to set it up so that calls with certain prefixes go through device's GSM voice link and all the rest go via SIP. This has had a bonus of blocking short "premium" numbers, which proliferate in European GSM networks and are designed to take advantage of careless cell phone users.

https://code.google.com/p/sipdroid/

BTW, both Sipdroid and CSipSimple are *opensource* projects, so if you need some *really* advanced routing it is not impossible to code the required logic directly into the app.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: calls, sip
---


# Question
Title: Will wiping an Android device wipe the system or only personal files?
I am unable to use my phone. It will hold a charge and die quickly. I will be receiving a new phone tomorrow. However, I want to wipe my phone for my personal benefit.

Will it wipe the system or just my personal files?

# Answer
This weekend I did a factory reset on my Droid Incredible, asking it to wipe everything. (The phone had been slowly turning into a brick and this was the solution.) After it finished, there was still a lot of my personal information on it, not just in the memory card, but also in the main memory of the phone. I had it expected it all to be gone.

If I were going to sell or give a phone away, I would first do the factory reset then hook it to my PC, change the USB connection type to disk drive, scour for personal info, overwriting and `rm`ing everything I could find.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: factory-reset
---


# Question
Title: Why is there such a difference in the amount of internal memory?
So first, when I go to Settings -\> Apps this is what is shown:

(Click image to enlarge)

After some time ~20 seconds, the amount of space left is this:

(Click image to enlarge)

Why does this happen? What does this mean? And when installing any Android app I always get the **insufficient storage space** error. Why?

When determining the amount of space that is free, which of the two *screenshots' storage space* does the Android OS consider? Anyhow, in both the cases the minimum that I had was **40MB** and the app that I wanted to install was **12MB**, yet I got the error.  I am running on HTC Legend, Android 4.1  Please clear this confusion. Thanks!

# Answer
Your confusion is most likely caused by the way the Playstore handles installs/updates. They are first downloaded and stored in *internal* storage (not on sdcard, but `/data/local`), then the app is to be installed on the same partition (`/data/data/app.package.name`) -- only after that the download can be deleted.

In your case, this would mean a 12M download, which then needs to be unpacked (at least another 12M, or rather more) -- which could sum up to 30M or more. A safety margin needs to be kept to keep the device from crashing -- so you get the "insufficient storage" error.

See also: Package Install via Market sometimes fails and gives seemingly random error message
> 1 votes

# Answer
There is a difference for multiple reasons:

1. The app settings menu takes a few seconds to update the amount of storage an app takes up \[AND\]
2. Apps sometimes delete/add data to their data folders. This causes the amount of storage to change often.

You may get the insufficient storage space if an app expands and extracts needed libs and data when it is installed - this can cause the insufficient storage error.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: applications, internal-storage, installation, insufficient-memory
---


# Question
Title: Gmail - one notification for all new messages
I use the new Gmail app on my Galaxy s2.

One notification for each new message s very annoying.

I want the new mail notification to act like on my desktop - a notification on the toolbar that indicates that there is an unread mail.

Can you thing on a way to do that?

# Answer
Within Gmail while at the inbox screen if you click **Menu** and then **Label Settings** you should then be able to check **notify once** and then you should get notified for every new messages as a group.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: notifications, gmail
---


# Question
Title: Google Calendar Erroneously Deleting Events
Over the last couple of weeks, Google calendar has repeatedly deleted the events I entered. It occurs approximately 12-24 hours after I create the event.

EDIT: In response to question below, it's deleting events created both on the phone, as well as at calendar.google.com.

Is anyone else experiencing this issue? If so, has anyone had luck fixing it?

Finally, does anyone know how I can contact Google directly about this issue? Their "help" page is a labyrinth.

Devices: Sprint HTC EVO 4G, Android v. 2.3.5
Macbook OSX 10.6.8

# Answer
I used Spanning, which was perfect. Took care of the whole thing. Why google doesn't have this functionality is beyond me.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: google-calendar
---


# Question
Title: Error Connecting Nexus 7 to Ubuntu 12.10
I have a 32 GB Nexus 7 (idVendor = 18d1, idProduct = 4e41, if that helps...), and my laptop runs Ubuntu 12.10, and have tried connecting using K.K. Patel's answer here, to almost no avail. What happens is that the "GalaxyNexus" folder is created, and then when I try to navigate to it, it has two sub-folders "Playlists", and "Internal Storage" (I cannot add a file or folder here, which is the first point of concern).

When I navigate to "Playlists", the folder opens to a nice blank screen and I guess that's to be expected (I haven't been able to put music onto it yet).

When I try to open the "Internal Storage" folder, it opens a new window that is the same as the first ("Playlists", "Internal Storage").

So I tried going in through the terminal to a similar fate. Anyone experienced this problem and/or know what to do to fix it? I really just want to be able to transfer files to the device.

# Answer
Jelly Bean devices do not use USB Mass Storage to mount themselves on PCs. They use the more secure MTP method, and Ubuntu does not natively support MTP.

The method you have linked to is the only official way to do what you want.

I own a Nexus 7, but I am using a custom ROM, and as such, USB Mass Storage is hacked into my build. However, I believe on the stock ROM, if you check in Storage and you press Menu, you should have an option to set the USB connection type, and there is a Picture Transfer mode. It won't let you see all of the files on your Nexus, but it will allow you to copy and it shouldn't need any extra help inside Ubuntu.

For an extremely detailed explanation on MTP and why it exists, and why on the stock ROM you will never be able to use it as a flash drive, I highly recommend you check this StackExchange question:

How can I use my Galaxy Nexus as an external USB storage drive?
> 2 votes

---
Tags: nexus-7, file-transfer, 4.2-jelly-bean
---


title: Can I Throttle the GPU on my phone?

text:
# Question
Title: Can I Throttle the GPU on my phone?
My phone gets really hot when playing games. I've tried throttling the cpu all the way down, but it doesn't seem to help any. Is there anyway to manually throttle the GPU?

EDIT:
My phone is an LG Motion 4G LTE

# Answer
Most modern smartphones produce a lot of heat when playing CPU/GPU intensive games, there's not much you can do about it.

If you reduce GPU frequency, two things can happen: stuttering of gameplay (depending on your game), and the CPU/GPU run at maximum frequency for longer amounts of time to complete the same work (that a higher frequency GPU would have done in shorter time). That may negate much of the heat reduction you are trying to achieve. My 2 cents is to leave the settings at stock.

(for more details, read http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=34153152&postcount=15576 by a chip designer who worked with Nvidia, TI etc).

If you are still keen on underclocking, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1827635 suggests that GPU over/underclocking is possible with SetCPU app. That link is for Galaxy S3, but it should work for your phone too if your kernel supports it (you might have to flash a custom kernel to control the GPU).
> 1 votes

---
Tags: overheating, gpu
---


# Question
Title: Tried hack to force 4.2 update, result is a broken play store. Theories?
So I'm on a Galaxy Nexus. Still on 4.1. I tried the 'hack' where you clear data on the Google Services Framework, then check update, but no luck. I shrugged and got on with my day.

Now I'm noticing that I have several updates in the play store. And if I choose "update" all I get is an instant "Update for \[app name\] could not be downloaded". Repeatedly.

I've tried clearing data for the play store, rebooting, but nothing.

Yay. Any theories?

# Answer
> 4 votes
Remove and add again your Google (main) user account. This should do the trick.

---
Tags: google-play-store, updates, samsung-galaxy-nexus, system-error
---


# Question
Title: Radio and inbound Calls Volumes Can be set separately?
On Samsung Galaxy 2 is there a way to set volumes for the radio and incoming calls separately from each other? What's too laud for the radio (for me anything above 3) is not loud enough for the incoming calls, which results in me missing calls.

# Answer
If everything else fails (and your comment above says you cannot set the volumes separately as needed), you could take a look at Volume Ace, which not only allows you to set all volumes separately, but even lets you create profiles switchable via widgets:

This enables you to always have the right volume settings according to the situation.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: samsung-galaxy-s-2, volume-control
---


# Question
Title: Complete Dropbox implementation for Android
I'm looking for a method to retrieve **all** my files from my Dropbox account and download them to my SD card.

This should download everything with no user intervention. There are a couple of Dropbox applications around but none of them have the ability to download everything and even worse most seem to work incorrectly on huge files skipping the last part or simply not working.

# Answer
> 6 votes
Another app is now available to be a more complete solution: Titanium Media Sync

> The reliable and battery-friendly way of syncing your files to/from the cloud !
>
> This unique app allows you to sync a set of folders from your Android device to the cloud and back. It currently supports the free Dropbox storage service. The official Dropbox app is not needed.
>
> Innovative "setup & forget" sync engine with these features:
>
> * Battery friendly.
> * Works on ALL Android devices.
> * Will NOT slow down your device when no data changes.
> * Will backup your new/modified files (eg: photos, videos) in the background, as soon as possible.
> * Adapts to ever-changing connectivity and power conditions.
>
> Supports 2 different sync modes (both are one-way):
>
> * Continuous sync from Local to Remote.
> * One-shot sync from Remote to Local.

And from Lifehacker's review:

> If you've been unhappy with the way Dropbox's mobile app only uploads files manually, you'll want to check out Titanium Media Sync, which will constantly sync folders from your phone to Dropbox, just like Dropbox does on the desktop.
>
> From the makers of the amazing Titanium Backup, Titanium Media Sync is what Dropbox's mobile app should have been. You pick folders from your SD card to sync back to your Dropbox. Any time you add something to those folders—say, if you take a picture on your phone, or download an app you want to try out on your computer later on—it will automatically sync those changes back, so your files will be waiting for you when you get back to your computer. You can also sync folders from your Dropbox to your SD card, but it's only a one-time sync—Titanium won't monitor your remote folders, only the ones on your SD card.
>
> The interface is pretty easy to use, too. The left column shows all the folders on your SD card, while the column on the right shows your Dropbox, and you can just drag and drop folders from one to the other to sync them. Dragging from the the right column will download that folder to your SD card, while dragging from left to right will give you the option of setting up that folder for automatic sync. Because it only syncs one way, it won't constantly call the internet slow down your phone when it's waiting for changes. You can even set whether you want it to sync over Wi-Fi only, or over 3G and 4G in the preferences. By default, it will also sync only when your phone's plugged in to save battery (but you can change this in the preferences too). Seriously, if you're a Dropbox user, this app is absolutely worth having—even moreso than the official Dropbox app itself.
>
> Titanium Media Sync is a $2.99 download for Android devices.

# Answer
> 9 votes
Titanium Media Sync offers continuous sync from SD Card *to* DropBox, but not the other way... the way I do it is setup rsync jobs with tasker and rsyncbackup... (requires your DropBox to be automatically kept in sync on a desktop pc somewhere, running an ssh server). The following should get you up and running:

# Step 1: DropBox remote.

First, setup DropBox on a computer somewhere running an ssh server, so you can copy files from it over ssh (with rsync), and make sure it’s setup with private key encryption with an agent so you don’t need to enter passphrases/passwords every time

# Step 2: RSync from remote to phone

Then, get rsync4android (market link) That lets you setup rsync jobs from a remote server to your phone (and vice versa… I use it for this, but also for backing up my photos to my PC automatically every night) Then create an rsync job to download a particular folder from your remote DropBox on your PC into the DropBox folder on your sd card.

# Step 3: scheduled automatic rsync jobs

Get tasker (which lets you schedule jobs to happen on a large number of triggers, including time) (market link) Create a tasker job to fire off your new rsync job to keep your dropbox folder up to date.

# Step 4: Enjoy

Like I say, it’s a bit around the houses, but seems to do the job

I've also posted a copy of these instructions on my blog.

# Answer
> 3 votes
If you are not totally tied to Dropbox, I think SugarSync and their Android app might do what you are looking for.

If it has to be Dropbox, I would say that you should post the feature request to them.

Or, if you are really desperate, fund a developer willing to write an app to do it using the Dropbox API. It would actually be fairly straight forward.

Good luck.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Dropsync also works, it syncs any folder on your sd card (including /sdcard/ ) with any dropbox folder (including the main dropbox folder), so it's possible use it like the desktop client, i.e. to have a directory called /sdcard/dropbox/ which contains your entire dropbox, but it's really much more flexible than that :)

# Answer
> 1 votes
Use FolderSync (Free lite version is also available with some limitations). It has many sync options: Two-way sync, One-way sync (up or down).

# Answer
> 0 votes
This very informative & comprehensive article written for Freeware Genius on September 4th 2012 entitled **"How to automatically sync your PC folders with your Android"** by Samer Kurdi

http://www.freewaregenius.com/how-to-automatically-sync-your-pc-folders-with-your-android/

This post will describe how you can set this up so it happens automatically without your intervention based on certain rules (for example sync every night, only when connected to WIFI). If you’re thinking ‘Dropbox’ then you’re partially correct: you will use Dropbox for this, in conjunction with 2 other free programs that make it possible to (a) sync a PC folder without moving it into the Dropbox folder, and (b) to schedule folder syncs on your Android so they take place automatically.

# Answer
> -1 votes
The official Android Dropbox app is your best bet. If they don't offer support for what you want, you should request that they add a feature.

---
Tags: sync, dropbox, downloading
---


# Question
Title: Is there any study on how which services/sensors consume the battery?
I am looking for some **study/comparison on how battery-consuming are specific services/sensors** (3G, Wifi, GPS, Bluetooth, accelerometer) in Android devices. I know that the exact answer might differ depending on a phone but the question is general - which sensors are more consuming than others.

Has anyone stumbled across something like that?

# Answer
> 12 votes
If you look at this video from the Google I/O conference and the slides you can see that they show how much WiFi, the CPU, screen, GPS, accelerometer etc. use in a device.

Here is the video and the slides.

A quick summary in case the links go down:

This shows the amount of battery used by the components in milliamps (mA). Another unit needed is milliamp hours (mAh) which is what battery capacity is measured in, a typical smartphone might have 1600mAh capacity. Having just the screen on we can see how long the device may last by dividing the capacity (1600 mAh) by the usage (~100 mA) giving us 16 hours of use with just the LCD screen on.

It's an interesting video if you take the time to watch the whole thing. It discusses wake locks, where an app will wake up the device to update itself, and how they affect battery life which is an aspect I don't usually consider about applications.

# Answer
> 0 votes
For the actual sensors (accelerometer etc) they report there nominal power consumption in the api. There are apps that let you see this, I use Z-DeviceTest for this. In practice the values for the sensors are normally dwarfed by the cpu which has to be active to do anything with the data and you often have the screen on which is of course even worse normaly.

---
Tags: battery-life
---


# Question
Title: adb "Permission denied" to run a "./configure" file
I need to run a `configure` file into my android phone so I think the best way to do this is to use the `adb shell` command.

I'm running an Android emulator onto a Windows-7 platform, and there I'm running the `adb shell` command into a DOS window. Using the `cd` command I'm changing to the directory where my `configure` file is, and then I'm executing the following command: `./configure`. I'm getting the following error :

```
./configure: permission denied

```

So I try to run adb in root mode with `adb root` -- but apparently my adb is already in root mode (Moreover I have the "#" character before each line of my adb shell).

I have also tried to use `chmod` but I don't see any difference before and after executing this command (`ls -la`), so maybe the problem is here (How can I run the `chmod` command?).

Maybe someone here can help me with my issue, and if you have also an explanation about why I don't have the permission to run my `configure` file it will be great.

Thanks.

PS: My goal here is to use the net-snmp package on an Android platform by compiling the sources of this project directly onto the platform.

# Answer
This is due to 2 things:

1. The file does not have execute permissions \[AND\]
2. The file cannot gain executable permissions as it is on the SD Card. The SD Card's filesystem can accept file permissions, however it is mounted with the `noexec` flag, as stated in a comment. This stops files being executed.

Solution:

1. Copy the `net-snmp-5.7.2` directory to the `/data/local/tmp` directory as root.
2. Set the `configure` file to be executable by running `chmod 0777 /data/local/tmp/net-snmp-5.7.2/configure` as root.
3. You should now be able to execute the configure script by typing `/data/local/tmp/net-snmp-5.7.2/configure` and pressing enter.

**Note**

This should all be done as the root user :)
> 11 votes

# Answer
As explained by the comments and Liam's answer, this is due to the `noexec` flag used by the system when mounting the sdcard. If your `configure` file is a shell script (as it usually is), you can still trick it to be executed:

`cd` to the directory as you described above, and then execute `sh configure`.

`sh` is the Shell interpreter, and that binary should be located in `/system/bin`, where files *are* executable. Passing your script as the first argument, this will open a new shell process which executes your `configure` script.
> 10 votes

---
Tags: adb, sd-card, shell, file-permissions, bash
---


# Question
Title: Does the Google Play app always updates automatically?
I use Android 4.0.4 (Cyanogenmod) and I have the habit of disabling automatic updates for all my apps. I have noticed the Google Play app seems to update itself automatically -- when there are updates for any other app, I'm shown a notification mesage from the Google Play app, and I have to use it in order to update the app. But when there are updates for Google Play, it seems to autoupdate itself. Is it true? Is there a way to disable this?

# Answer
According to the Section 3 of the Google Play Terms of Service you consent to Automatic Updates:

> Updates. You may need to install updates to Google Play or related Google software that we introduce from time to time to use Google Play and to access or download Products. Products originating from Google may communicate with Google servers from time to time to check for available updates to the Products and to the functionality of Google Play, such as bug fixes, patches, enhanced functions, missing plug-ins and new versions (collectively, "Updates"). **By using the Google Play store and installing these Products, you agree to such automatically requested and received Updates.**

\*Bolding added for emphasis.
> 9 votes

# Answer
Yes, the Google Play Store does self-update itself.

As far as I know, there is no way to disable the auto-self-updating of the Play Store application as it is built into the application/system's code. You might could try freezing it with Titanium Backup (requires root), but I don't know if that would work since the Play Store is also integrated into the OS. The only sure way would be to disable all internet connectivity.

Is there a specific reason that you want to disable this feature?
> 4 votes

# Answer
There is a way to disable updates of your Google Play application, but it's not secured. It's possible for you to have problems updating your market when you decide you want.

If you want to try, this is what you have to do:

* You have to root you device
* Install Link2SD
* Open Link2SD
* Click on the Play Store update
* Select actions
* Convert to system app
* **Reboot immediately**

Read more here.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: google-play-store, application-autoupdate
---


# Question
Title: Is it possible to show ongoing notifications under regular notifications?
On my Galaxy S3 (4.0.4) when I drag the notifications bar down to see the list of the notifications, the ongoing ones (e.g. wifi) are always on the top and the regular ones (e.g. gmail) are the at the bottom.

That seems reversed. It means to see a recent notification that just beeped a user has to drag the bar down and then scroll down.

Is there any way to reverse them so the recent/non-ongoing ones are on top? Either in 4.0, or perhaps something i can look forward to in 4.1, or perhaps in cyanogenmod (I will switch to eventually).

# Answer
> 0 votes
Notifications, at least in CyanogenMod or AOSP, are ordered in order or the last updated notification.

If you have an app that updates the notification, then the notification will appear on top when it updates.

There is currently no way to change this behaviour.

Note: Some stock ROMs order the notifications into ongoing etc, this is the design of the manufacturer, and can also not be changed

You should get something like what you are asking in cyanogenmod.

---
Tags: 4.0-ice-cream-sandwich, notifications, samsung-galaxy-s-3
---


# Question
Title: Why does Google always need personal data?
Whenever there is an app from *Google Inc* in the Android market, I am uncomfortable with their permission levels: Why do they always need read/write permissions to personal data/contacts and all our personal stuff?

Even though I believe Google, I am not interested in sharing my personal data with them. Can something be done -- like, limiting the permissions?

# Answer
As Goggles is an app that you've said you're curious about, here are the permissions it asks for(copied from the Market web page):

This application has access to the following:

> **Your accounts**
>
> Google App Engine
> *Allows applications to sign in to Google App Engine using the account(s) stored on this phone.*
>
> access other Google services
> *Allows applications to sign in to unspecified Google services using the account(s) stored on this phone.*
>
> act as an account authenticator
> *Allows an application to use the account authenticator capabilities of the AccountManager, including creating accounts and getting and setting their passwords.*
>
> manage the accounts list
> *Allows an application to perform operations like adding, and removing accounts and deleting their password.*
>
> use the authentication credentials of an account
> *Allows an application to request authentication tokens.*
>
> **Hardware controls**
>
> take pictures and videos
> *Allows application to take pictures and videos with the camera. This allows the application at any time to collect images the camera is seeing.*
>
> **Your location**
>
> coarse (network-based) location
> *Access coarse location sources such as the cellular network database to determine an approximate device location, where available. Malicious applications can use this to determine approximately where you are.*
>
> fine (GPS) location
> *Access fine location sources such as the Global Positioning System on the device, where available. Malicious applications can use this to determine where you are, and may consume additional battery power.*
>
> **Network communication**
>
> full Internet access
> *Allows an application to create network sockets.*
>
> **Your personal information**
>
> read contact data
> *Allows an application to read all of the contact (address) data stored on your device. Malicious applications can use this to send your data to other people.*
>
> write contact data
> *Allows an application to modify the contact (address) data stored on your device. Malicious applications can use this to erase or modify your contact data.*
>
> **Storage**
>
> modify/delete USB storage contents modify/delete SD card contents
> *Allows an application to write to the USB storage. Allows an application to write to the SD card.*

Having used Goggles for a while, these all seem fairly innocuous, here are what Goggles does that needs those permissions:

**Your Accounts** Everything under this heading is needed because Goggles links to your Google account and stores your Goggles history in your Google account, so that you can go back at look at your previous searches, even after you change phones. To do this it needs to access the Google account login credentials already saved in your phone's "Accounts" list, otherwise it would have to prompt you to log in to Google every time you open it, or re-save your credentials again itself, which is a bit silly when they're already stored centrally on the phone. If you have more than one Google account on your phone, then the first time you open Goggles it asks you which one you want to save your history into. There's a setting that stops it saving your search history if you don't want this.

**Hardware Controls** The entire point of Goggles is to take pictures using the camera, it can't do that without these permissions.

**Your location** Using Goggles you can take pictures of landmarks and buildings and have it automatically identify them. It uses your location to help it narrow down the guesses of what you're photographing.

**Network communication** It uses Google's servers and massive databases to help it identify the potentially billions of different things you could photograph and ask it to recognize.

**Your personal information** **read/write contact data** You can take a photo of a business card with Goggles and have it save the contact details from the business card straight into your Contacts.

**Storage** You can set Goggles to save all the images it takes to your SD card for later viewing via the gallery app (this is in the Settings and is off by default).

---

So, as far as I can see, they have a legitimate reason for all of the permissions that the app asks for that fits with one or more of the apps functions or needs. Could they also use these permissions for other purposes? Yes, but personally I trust the app to only use the access for the required purposes, after all Google has plenty of other ways to get all of that info, as I'm already syncing all of my Contacts, etc up to GMail anyway!
> 11 votes

# Answer
The apps are usually in some way tied to your contacts. Like Gmail for example, if they did not read your contacts, you could not get your contacts to show up when you typed in an email address or name. if they did not write, you could not add a new gmail contact.

Do you have a specific app you are curious about?

You cannot limit permissions of an application (by default, but there are some 3rd party ROMs that are testing this functionality)
> 5 votes

# Answer
If you are concerned about your privacy *in general*, there are approaches that can be taken. You will never convince Google to let go of their data hunger, and you won't argue many developers into changing their permission requirements, as most of those are really needed for core functionalities of the apps -- or at least functionalities most of the users want from them. But you can do something about your devices:

## Privacy protectors for rooted devices

If your device is rooted, there are a few apps available to protect your data. Best known in this area is LBE Privacy Guard (which has some troubles with Jelly Bean currently), a closed-source app from China. Used by many people not only there, first doubts (closed source + China = Spyware?) won't hold long: People even tracked what the app was doing, up to now I heard no evil thing.

Second, there's PDroid Privacy Protection, which is a little tricky to install, and finally it's Open Source pendant PDroid Manager.

All these apps allow you to restrict actions an app might want to perform -- without causing the app to crash. Most likely all of them feed the apps fake data instead: Empty contacts/calendar, no network available, no (or a fake) location, randomly generated IMEI, and the like. You can configure on a per-app base which permissions to restrict.

But for sure, root is a must-have for them -- otherwise they wouldn't be able to restrict other apps.

## Privacy settings for all devices

Without root, this gets a little tricky -- and not at all that perfect: you can disable all sync, use a non-google calendar/contacts app (with their own databases, not syncing with Google or anything else), decide to not backup your data to Google, etc. If you feel that's not enough, take a look at the article Life without Google for additional hints.

Going paranoid, you can also disable WiFi and mobile network completely. That's almost like buying a dumb-phone then -- but using apps from other sources (as explained in the linked article), you'd still have phone and PDA in one device. You'd just miss the other "half" of its features.

## Conclusion

Many of us don't like to give up their privacy, though most don't seem to care. The Android system is still better in keeping it than many other systems around (no bashing, so I won't name any). With some precaution, a compromise seems possible to me: stay away from apps violating your privacy too much, and chose wisely what you install and use :)
> 2 votes

---
Tags: google, permissions
---


# Question
Title: How do I move the gesture button in Dolphin HD?
Before the Sonar changes, I could move the gesture button by long-pressing it and dragging it to a different corner. Now long pressing brings up a menu to use a gesture or use Sonar.

How can I move the gesture button to a different corner?

# Answer
Tap the gesture button to bring gesture drawing screen. On this screen, you can find a Gear icon in bottom-right corner. Tap it and you'll find 1st option on next screen for changing position.
> 5 votes

# Answer
On the Nexus 7 it is similarly hidden, you select

1. The gear
2. Gesture settings
3. Scroll to bottom \<--
4. Change entry location
5. Select from (left,right,hidden)
6. Enjoy :-)
> 1 votes

---
Tags: dolphin-browser
---


title: Marking notifications as unread

text:
# Question
Title: Marking notifications as unread
(I use CyanogenMod 9.)

Here's something that bugs me.

Say that someone sent me a few text messages or left a few missed calls on my phone. I see them as notifications, which is great because it draws my attention to them as something I need to take care of.

But, once I tap the notification to see the text messages or the people who called, the notification is cleared. Sometimes I just want to look at them but still leave them for myself to deal with later.

The way this is done in emails is to mark emails as unread; you can read an email, then mark it as unread so you'll know you still need to handle it. I'd love to have something similar for Android notifications, or any other good solution to this problem.

# Answer
> 3 votes
Its worth upgrading to cyanogenmod 10+ With it you can expand notifications to 'preview' the contents of the text or missed call, straight from the notification drawer. To do this, you simply pinch the notification and it will expand down. Try searching youtube for a video demonstration of this, it is a cool feature that will appear to solve your problem.

---
Tags: cyanogenmod, notifications
---


# Question
Title: Slide to unlock appears even when pattern lock is activated. How can I get straight to pattern lock mode after screen is turned on?
I thought the whole idea of pattern lock is to replace the 'slide to unlock' thing with something safe. Well I don't know if this is a bug or not but I have to 'slide to unlock' first before I can use my set pattern to unlock the phone (the epitome of redundancy). How do I get straight to pattern unlock after turning on the screen?.

By the way I own an Xperia Neo V running Sony's skin, Timescape UI

# Answer
Are you running a custom ROM?

I know that in cyanogenmod you can choose to keep the slide to unlock screen and then your unlock pattern. That's the way mine is set up.

To turn this off (in cyanogenmod 7's case) follow these steps

1. Go to settings
2. Tap Cyanogenmod settings
3. Tap Lockscreen
4. Tap Unlock options
5. Then uncheck the top option labelled "Skip on security"

You might be able to find the "Skip on security" setting somewhere else on your phone if you aren't running an official version of cyanogenmod or if the rom is only based on cyanogenmod
> 2 votes

---
Tags: 2.3-gingerbread, lock-screens
---


# Question
Title: Factory Reset Android Developer Phone without password
I used to have an Android developer phone (an ancient HTC Innovation) that I recently gave to a friend. Now we're trying to unlock it so he can use it. We put in the unlock password too many times, so now the phone is asking us for my Google password, even if we turn the phone on and off again. Unfortunately, the phone doesn't have Internet access and I changed my Google account password since the last time I used the phone, so I have no idea what password to put in to unlock it.

How can we unlock or factory reset the phone so my friend can use it?

# Answer
> 2 votes
If fastboot is installed on the handset (or commonly called `bootloader`), it might be best to re-flash via usage of USB cable and the handset with the cable plugged in.

In order to achieve this, a original image file is needed for this to work. The essence of `fastboot`, is that from the command line, the handset can be re-formatted and told to boot specific kernels without touching the original on the handset.

Consider the options used in the `fastboot` binary command line application, as in:

```
usage: fastboot [ <option> ] <command>

commands:
  update <filename>                        reflash device from update.zip
  flashall                                 flash boot + recovery + system
  flash <partition> [ <filename> ]         write a file to a flash partition
  erase <partition>                        erase a flash partition
  getvar <variable>                        display a bootloader variable
  boot <kernel> [ <ramdisk> ]              download and boot kernel
  flash:raw boot <kernel> [ <ramdisk> ]    create bootimage and flash it
  devices                                  list all connected devices
  continue                                 continue with autoboot
  reboot                                   reboot device normally
  reboot-bootloader                        reboot device into bootloader
  help                                     show this help message

options:
  -w                                       erase userdata and cache
  -s <serial number>                       specify device serial number
  -p <product>                             specify product name
  -c <cmdline>                             override kernel commandline
  -i <vendor id>                           specify a custom USB vendor id
  -b <base_addr>                           specify a custom kernel base address
  -n <page size>                           specify the nand page size. default: 2048

```

Thus, the command line to wipe cleanly and flash the original image file would be this:

1. `fastboot erase system` to wipe the `/system` partition cleanly.
2. `fastboot erase data` to wipe the `/data` partition cleanly.
3. `fastboot flash system original_system_image.img`

The optional step may as well be, to flash the original boot image which can be achieved in this manner - `fastboot flash boot original_boot_image.img`.

If you happen to have the original `update.zip` for your handset, it might be easier to do it in this fashion, instead of the three steps above listed, as in `fastboot update update.zip`.

---
Tags: factory-reset, htc, password
---


# Question
Title: Differnce between abilities of System apps, Apps in phone memory and Apps in the SD card
> **Possible Duplicate:**
> What are the differences between a system app and user app?

What is the difference between abilities of System apps, Apps in phone memory and that in the memory card?

The only difference that I know about currently is that Widgets' of Apps in the memory card do not show up in the widgets' list and thus can't be used?

Are there any more differences? What are they and why?

# Answer
## Definitions

* **System App:** an app that is installed on the (usually read-only) System partition (`/system`)
* **User App:** all others (installed in phone memory or on the internal/external sdcard)

## User-Apps and System-Apps

Concerning System-Apps versus User-Apps, please see What are the differences between a system app and user app? as suggested by dymutaos.

## Apps on SD

A special case are "Apps on SD". Starting with Android 2.2 (aka Fozen Yoghurt or, in short, Froyo), *App2SD* became a standard feature to the Android system. However, not all apps can be installed/moved to SD card this way, and for good reasons:

1. the developer might decide to not permit it (see App Install Location in the Android developer documentation)
2. certain functionalities do not permit it, as they would no longer work

In the second group belong...

* AutoStart: Apps could no longer be automatically started by the system (at `boot_completed`), as the SD card is only mounted *after* that event was broadcast
* when mounting the sdcard to a computer as USB storage, it is no longer available locally on the device -- hence the apps are no longer available -- hence they would be closed. Quoting from the mentioned source:
> When the user enables USB mass storage to share files with a computer or unmounts the SD card via the system settings, the external storage is unmounted from the device and all applications running on the external storage are immediately killed.
* services offered by such apps would not be available because of the above
* Widgets will fail exactly because of the above reasons
* same issues for input method engines, live wallpapers, account-managers, sync-adapters, and more (all described on the above linked source)

Sure there are possibilities to *force* almost any app to SD (e.g. DroidSail has this ability) -- but that would break above mentioned features, if any such app offers them. Another alternative is offered by e.g. Link2SD (rooted devices only), which utilizes a separate partition for those apps -- a partition *not* mounted to the PC, so a few restrictions are circumvented.

## Summary

Basically, there's no difference between the *apps* -- but it makes a difference where they are installed. Certain privileges are reserved to system apps only, as explained in this answer -- but system apps cannot be moved to sd. Apps on SD have certain restrictions, so not every app can be moved there -- but the good of it is: if an app can be moved there, it might save you valuable space on the internal storage, especially when that is limited (as it often is on low-end devices).
> 1 votes

---
Tags: applications, system-apps
---


# Question
Title: What is the difference between unmanaged vs managed in-app product?
What is the difference between a "managed in-app product" and an in-app product that is not managed?

# Answer
> 4 votes
The short answer is that managed items are items that can only be purchased once per user and that Google Play keeps track of their purchase, unmanaged items aren't tracked by Google Play and they can be purchased multiple times.

A fuller description is given in Google's In-app Billing Version 2:

> **Managed per user account** — Items that can be purchased only once per user account on Google Play. When a user purchases an item that uses the "managed per user account" product type, Google Play permanently stores the transaction information for each item on a per-user basis. This enables you to later query Google Play to restore the state of the items a specific user has purchased. If a user attempts to purchase a managed item that has already been purchased, Google Play prevents the user from purchasing the item again and displays an "Item already purchased" error.
>
> The "managed" product type is useful if you are selling items such as game levels or application features. These items are not transient and usually need to be restored whenever a user reinstalls your application, wipes the data on their device, or installs your application on a new device.
>
> **Unmanaged** — Items that do not have their transaction information stored on Google Play. This means that you cannot later query Google Play to retrieve transaction information for those items. For "unmanaged" purchases, you are responsible for managing the transaction information. Also, Google Play does not attempt to prevent the user from purchasing an item multiple times if it uses the "unmanaged" product type. It's up to you to control how many times an unmanaged item can be purchased.
>
> The "unmanaged" product type is useful if you are selling consumable items, such as fuel or magic spells. These items are consumed within your application and are usually purchased multiple times.

Note that only version 2 of the in-app billing deals with both managed and unmanaged, version 3 only deals with the managed in-app product type.

---
Tags: in-app-purchase
---


# Question
Title: Connecting multiple USB devices using a USB hub that connect to the USB port of a Android devices
Is it possible to use and connect a USB Hub on any generic and major Android tablets that only have 1 USB port and connecting multiple USB devices (depending on how many port the USB Hub have) such as the following:

* USB PC keyboard
* USB PC mouse
* USB Camera
* USB Floppy drive
* USB CD/DVD Writer
* USB Fan
* USB Thumbdrive/Flash drive

# Answer
Some tablets support USB hubs.

Source
> 2 votes

# Answer
Typically yes, you can use a USB hub to connect multiple devices without any issues. Whether or not these peripherals perform adequately may depend on the amount of power that they require, but that's common to un-powered USB hubs in any situation.

Google's Android support pages actually mention USB hubs. E.g. the Nexus S support page on keyboards and other devices specifically states:

> To connect more than one USB device at a time, use a powered USB hub to reduce the drain on your phone’s battery.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: usb, tablet, usb-peripherals
---


# Question
Title: Recovering deleted files from unrooted Galaxy Nexus
In my infinite buffoonery earlier today I deleted the entire camera pictures folder from my GSM Galaxy Nexus. I had last copied images from my phone in August and have lost all pictures since then :(

I've been looking around quite a bit to see if there's any way possible to recover those files. The two options that I've come across so far - using an Undelete app available in the Play store or using `dd` to take a block-level dump, both require the phone to be rooted. However my GNex is not and the official rooting process requires unlocking the bootloader which wipes the device. There was a thread on xda-developers that documented an exploit that could be used to root the GNex without unlocking the bootloader, however that exploit has been patched by Google.

Do any of you have any bright ideas on what I can do?

What's the nature of device wipe like that happens while rooting? Is recovery still possible after that making rooting still an option?

# Answer
Sorry, but in you phone there not SD card, and internal flash blocks can be rewritten, when phone works (physical location of blocks are different from logical and phone record logs, change internal data, download updates).

It's available chance with destructive methods (read flash on programmer device), and much smaller with root you phone (read whole memory), because any change of phone state decrease chances.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: samsung-galaxy-nexus, data-recovery
---


# Question
Title: Can I transfer application from account to account on a single tablet?
I bought an android tablet to my parents for christmas. I registered it on my Google account and went on and installed some apps. (Some are the ones I own on my second tablet, some are the ones I bought specifically for them.)

Now I want to give them the tablet and register their own Google account, so they can also buy new aplications without billing my account.

Is this possible? Will all the application disappear, or can I somehow keep them on the device? (I care especially about the apps that I bought.)

(If this will turn out hard/impossible, I will just let them use my account, but well, I would rather not, since they would be able to read all my e-mail and log to my Google+ and such.)

# Answer
> 6 votes
That depends on multiple things:

* if you remove your account from the device, the paid apps most likely will stop working (if they use Google License services to verify their validity). So concerning this it was a bad idea to buy those apps specifically for your parents using your account
* if the device is running at least Android 4.2, you can create separate accounts for your parents, with your own account staying the "owner" (which means, you would administrate the device for them -- certain actions as e.g. *factory reset* are limited to the "owner account"). In this case you would need to re-install all apps with the new account -- but it would be a "fake-reinstall" (they won't be doenloaded another time). Still, above mentioned license issue will remain: Each user must pay for the app separateley.
* no issue for free apps, however -- though if changing the account they might no longer update, as they are "registered" with the old account. This update issue could be fixed using the AppBrain App Market, which lets you sync the list of apps you've installed with your account (just one example, there might be other solutions I'm currently unaware of, or which might require root)

I know it's possible to have multiple accounts on a device (see e.g. Multiple Google Accounts and the Market). But never having tried this, I don't know how that works out. I think it's your parents, so you probably trust them enough to keep your account on the device, just adding a new one for them to use. This *might* solve the issue with the License stuff for the apps you already bought for them. But keep in mind that, depending on to which account the Playstore app defaults then, they might still ending up buying apps with your account. And, of course, they can read your mail -- not only those mails you explicitly send them, but all mail on the bound GMail account :)

However: Transfering payed apps between accounts is (currently?) *not* possible.

**UPDATE:** If your tablet is rooted, take a look at Multi-User App Share. This app permits the "owner" (first user of the device) to share apps with other accounts without having them re-download those from Google's Playstore. As for now, it is *not tested thoroughly with paid apps*, but should (at least partly) work. Check the app's description and comments for details.

---
Tags: applications, google-account
---


# Question
Title: Will I be able to change the region on my HTC desire S?
The RUU of the HTCdev cannot install to my Htc desire S. It always says that I need the correct RUU version and my region is SEA\_WWE.

Is there any way to install the RUU without changing my region? or how do I change the region to make my phone compatible?

# Answer
There is only one RUU available for Desire S in htcdev website which should work on all HTC Desire S.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: htc-desire-s, localization
---


# Question
Title: HTC Clock widget takes 2-3 seconds to update after unlock
On my HTC One X, my home screen has an HTC Clock widget on it. When I unlock my phone, the time displayed on the clock shows the old time (when the phone was last unlocked) for about 2-3 seconds, and only then updates to the correct time. The system time (as seen on the lock screen and in the status bar) is correct at all times, so for a jarring moment the widget and the status bar are displaying different times.

If I place an HTC Clock widget on a panel other than the home one, a similar problem occurs: the clock is not updated until a few seconds after that panel is displayed, at which time it 'jumps' to the correct time.

Is there anything I can do to fix this? Is this a problem unique to the HTC Clock widget, or would this also happen if I used a different app?

*edit* this behaviour remains the same in Airplane mode, so it's not a network latency issue

# Answer
Following an OTA upgrade to Android 4.1.1, this problem appears to have been fixed. On unlocking, the clock widget immediately shows the correct system time.
> 1 votes

# Answer
***From your description ..***

It would appear that the widget is just polling (**ntp** to Internet timeserver), rather than ever trusting the inbuilt (battery backed) clock.

*This could simply be a design decision / flaw.*
> -1 votes

---
Tags: app-widgets, clock, htc-one-x
---


# Question
Title: What is the typical range when using ANT+ on Android?
My question is how long is the range from the phone to the ANT+ device. What is the suitable range between ANT+ device? I have seen this demo and I am curious if it is worth my money.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Hard to say the exact range. There is plenty for your standard usage scenarios with standard ANT+ sensors. e.g. phone mounted on bike or in jersey pocket picks up bike sensors while riding no trouble.

Testing my app IpBike with USB ANT stick emulating the sensors and the app running on an Xperia Active I can wander around the same room with no loss of reception. To test loss of reception cases down the garden 10m through the window is not enough to totally lose reception but it is getting patchy. I have to go around to the front of the house and get a good number of walls between the phone and the ANT stick for a total loss of reception.

---
Tags: ant-plus
---


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

# Answer
You can use one of the "headset button controls" available on the playstore, e.g. JAYS Headset Control or Philips Headset. Both allow you to define an app started automatically when your headset attaches, and as well to assign actions on short/long/combined headset button presses.

To make that better understandable, let's take the morse code: `.` is short, `-` is long press. So the default configuration e.g. does on...

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

and more, up to triple combinations. With most of these apps, actions can be freely configured.
> 0 votes

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


title: Wireless doesn't work on college campus

text:
# Question
Title: Wireless doesn't work on college campus
I can connect to the school's campus wifi, but when I try to get on Opera, it will not let me connect to any website. Apps that use the internet do not work. I get bars on the wifi. Usually, on the first connect from a new device, it will ask me to register my device. I am guessing that since I haven't registered with the new device, I cannot access the internet with any apps. The problem is that I usually get the page that asks me to register my new device when I try to connect to a website. Opera doesn't take me to that site, though. The wifi works on all other devices.

Edit: When I connect to the home wifi, it works.

# Answer
You didn't specify whether you're using Opera Mini or Opera Mobile, Opera Mini uses compression proxy server to optimize the page for your device; and this almost invariably breaks in-browser wifi authentication page since the browser will try to connect to its proxy which it can't do because the gateway blocks access to the proxy until you authenticate. Opera Mobile by default do not use the compression proxy, but if you turn on the Turbo feature then it will use the proxy.

You still can use Opera Mini or Opera Mobile with Turbo if you authenticate using the regular Browser then switch to Opera. If you're using Opera Mobile, then switch off Turbo temporarily for the authentication page.
> 5 votes

# Answer
I've seen some lame WiFi gateways (especially at hotels) that only intercept correctly for top-level URLs like "http://www.somesite.com", but more specific URLs like "http://www.somesite.com/this/that/another" don't work because they get redirected to "http://192.168.0.1/this/that/another" which doesn't work on the lame gateway.

So, try browsing to "www.google.com" or any other bare URL to trigger the login page.
> 3 votes

# Answer
I used to face the same problem for long time. But now I've got the solution. Very easy:

Go to *Menu → Settings → Advanced → Protocol* and choose *HTTP only*.

It works for me :)
> 3 votes

# Answer
Wi-fi is used for just wireless networking (not necessarily for internet sharing). So, if you get bars on wi-fi, it doesn't mean you've got internet access. Wi-fi can be used to share files or gaming, for example.

In your case, I suppose.. your school's campus wi-fi would be providing internet (the only purpose they advertise wi-fi campus). If you are unable to get to the internet, it means access control of wi-fi router is blocking you. Why? Ask wi-fi administrator. The probable reason: You haven't registered your device.

But, before asking wi-fi administrator, use Fing - Network Tools to check TCP connection with external host. If there's really a problem, contact wi-fi administrator. There's nothing more you can do.

> **Disclaimer:** I answered after presuming that your apps can connect to internet over other wi-fi networks.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: wi-fi, internet, opera-mini
---


title: How to know if a webview is using https

text:
# Question
Title: How to know if a webview is using https
As a user, is there a way to know if the page displayed in a webview inside an application is using https or not?

# Answer
> 5 votes
If you control the network, you can use Shark for Root to check whether the apps open port 80 (default port for HTTP) or port 443 (default port for HTTPS). IIRC, WireShark can also read HTTP headers.

If you don't want to root your phone, and you're on a Wifi network that you owned; you can use Wireshark/Firesheep to snoop on the traffic of the Android device from your laptop.

# Answer
> 2 votes
I don't think there is a way to find out directly. The only thing I can think of is

---
Tags: https, webview
---


# Question
Title: How to connect Android phone to a Wifi network using PPPoE?
I have an ISP at home, which provides me with a PPPoE connection. My router supports that and I've configured it to autoconnect periodically, so I don't have to type my username and password each time.

When I connect to the Wireless router from the PC, I have internet and everything works fine. However, when I do so using my Android phone, there's no internet connection on the phone. It connects to the router, but I cannot open any web page.

How can I enable internet access from such an ISP on my phone? Is it something in the router setup? The router is Linksys WRT54GL.

# Answer
> 1 votes
There is an app that enables it (aptly called WIFI PPPOE), but it requires you to root your phone. PPPoE is not natively supported in the Android SDK.

---
Tags: wi-fi, pppoe
---


# Question
Title: New Nexus 4 - transfer photos and other stuff from old Nexus S
So obviously I can't just "swap the SD card" as neither the old phone nor the new phone have an SD card slot.

Similarly I don't really want to copy everything across from the old phone, so I don't want to use titanium backup and root.

I just want the "standard" stuff transfered: mainly images, but maybe text messages and such as well.

Is there any way to do this short of literally plugging the phone into a computer and transferring them manually?

Thanks.

# Answer
Sync should take care of contacts and most settings on your phone.

Download SMS Backup and Restore on both phones, backup on Nexus S and send the backup xml file to N4 (via Bluetooth or wifi hotspot) for restoration.

For transferring files between the devices, you can use the wifi hotspot functionality. Works real fast. I'm not sure if it is available on Nexus 4 (being a newer, better phone, I presume it is), but I have it on my Nexus S and have used it to transfer files from a Galaxy S2.

*Update:* AnySend seems like a useful app to send files between two devices. The only requirement is that both have to be connected to the same wifi network.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: backup, samsung-nexus-s, images, nexus-4
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# Question
Title: Google Services hogging data - how to stop it?
**Note**: there is a related question to this, however it has no definitive answer. Asking in case anyone has discovered any solutions in the intervening period.

Onavo count continually reports that Google Services is hogging my data. This seems a recent phenomenon - last few months or so. I've switched off background sync and tried to restrict to wifi only. All unsuccessful. It continues to use

Phone is HTC desire Z running standard Android 2.3.3 (HTC Sense 2.1).

Phone was bought outright (i.e. not included as part of contract), running on SIM-only contract from O2 in UK.

Any suggestions for what's causing this? And more pertinently, how to stop it?

Thanks.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Go To Settings\> Accounts \> Google \> Click on Your Email/google account \> Untick to disable any syncs that you don't need (eg: i dont need google play movies or bookmarks) \> Turn off your device \> take battery out \> leave for 10 minutes \> reconnect battery & turn on Your device \> should be refreshed and ready to go with google services using less battery usage

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Tags: htc-desire-z, data-monitoring
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title: Nexus 4 / 7 and Wi-Fi incompatibility

text:
# Question
Title: Nexus 4 / 7 and Wi-Fi incompatibility
I have a Nexus 4 which works on most Wi-Fi networks, but not with my D-Link router running DD-WRT. It connects, but data transfer is sporadic at best, and essentially useless.

Amongst the myriad of advanced settings in DD-WRT, there must be something that can get the Nexus 4 working?

(This question is also valid for the Nexus 7 as some users report similar problems).

# Answer
Updating dd-wrt to the latest build (15778 - D-Link 615 D2) fixed it for me.
> 1 votes

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Tags: wi-fi, 4.1-jelly-bean, nexus-7, nexus-4
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# Question
Title: How to test multi-user feature of 4.2 JellyBean on Nexus 7 tablet emulator?
I know multi-user functionality is available in Android 4.2 JellyBean:

I have gone through THIS and THIS.

But I want to test this feature on my emulator and not on the actual device.

**My Questions:**

1. Is it possible to test multi-user feature on an emulator?
2. If yes, how it can be?

# Answer
> 6 votes
The Android emulator doesn't currently support this, unfortunately. There is a configuration file in the build system that determines whether or not to enable the user accounts feature, and it is disabled in the emulator images distributed by Google. You can star this issue on the bug tracker in the meantime.

However there are two alternatives you can look at:

1. You can alter the configuration file and build a new emulator image from the AOSP source and use that in place of the system image that the AVD uses by default. The file in question is in `/frameworks/base/core/res/res/values/config.xml` within the Android source. There should be an option named `config_multiuserMaximumUsers` which needs to be set to a value greater than 1.
2. You can try the Jar of Beans emulator package. It has experimental support for multiple user accounts. Note, however, that this is an x86 emulator, not an ARM one.

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Tags: nexus-7, 4.2-jelly-bean, android-emulator, multi-user
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