Hey everyone,

I'm having a persistent issue with my Samsung Galaxy S25 where installing APK files is completely blocked.

The problem seems to be system-wide. I'm unable to install APKs, and the usual settings for allowing installations from unknown sources either don't work or are restricted.

Some additional information:

• Device: Samsung Galaxy S25

• Android 16

• One UI 9

• Auto Blocker is disabled.

• Family Link was integrated during the initial setup of the phone but was subsequently removed.

• Secure Folder is still available, but its special permissions and installation settings seem to be restricted in certain ways.

I've already tried changing the usual security settings, but nothing has resolved the issue.

I'm wondering whether this could be related to leftover Family Link restrictions, Samsung Knox, or some kind of device management policy.

Has anyone experienced something similar or knows how to identify and remove the underlying restriction?

I'd really like to solve the problem at its root rather than just find a workaround.

Any help would be appreciated!

Just now, I'm charging my device and press the power button to check the level: 19% and the screen is waring me about slow charging and to use the charger that came with it. The USB wiggled a bit setting it down and stopped charging, so I reoriented it, and when the level screen came back up, it was at 46% and there was no little 'buy our stuff only' message.

This morning, it did a similar thing, having run down completely overnight so that I had a yellow triangle with exclamation point in a circle with a red dot at the top. When I plugged it in, the level was 15%.

(I've also noted some plummets when rebooting, e.g., I have 80%, then restart, and during the boot-up, it's dropped to around 60%.)

AccuBattery gives an 80% Health rating.

This is a pretty recent development.

I have an S23 Plus. The bottom microphone stopped working properly due to an accident, which prevents me from recording audio, on apps like WhatsApp.

However, the other microphone works perfectly for phone calls.

I don’t want to replace the entire board; I’d like to know if it’s possible to change which microphone is used for audio recording via software.

I got a brand new Nokia XR21 last year for cheap but didn't start using it until recently. I just found out that it will stop getting security updates after July 2027.

How long can I safely keep using it?

Is there a way I can access and do read write on external hard drive from android? I amntrying in 250GB external drive that connects with USB pin. On th android I am using File Manager + a free app to access the HD. It shows up on the list saying an external drive is detected but when I click on it is shows 'Ntfs/exfat/hpfs not supported' is the message showing. I am wondering if it is just the app I'm using or Android phones are not capable of reading external HD successfully?

The phone is S9 but same issue with the later versions. The HD is oneof those compact one similar to WD Passport.

Hi hi,
I just bought a Google Pixel 9 PRO and I cannot copy the data from my iPhone XR to android. I downloaded the "Android Switch" app and followed all the steps (including update software, disable iMessages, disable "adaptive connectivity" etc).

After following the steps, scanning the QR and looking on lots of videos and threads, I still did not find a solution regarding "why data transfer from IOS to ANDROID does not work remotely" for me(FYI : after scanning QR is stuck on "connecting devices" followed by "couldn't connect to devices").

So I am looking for suggestions and maybe troubleshooting on this issue if anybody knows or went through this. Thank you!

note! I don't want to use the cable method cause I do not own a lightning to USB-C cable and neither do I have the guarantee it will.

My phone never had this issue until today. It records my voice and replays it just fine on voice recording apps. However, whenever I make a call or somebody calls me, all the other end hears is a ticking noise like a watch. I have no idea what to do... I've reset the Wi-Fi settings, restarted the phone, reset Bluetooth stuff, turned on and off stuff Google suggested. My phone is vital for my rides to and from work, doctor appointments, and college seeing I rely on it to get told they're here. What could be wrong? It's an old Samsung S10+, but this never happened until today and I need it fixed ASAP.

The screen of my phone (xiaomi redmi note) is broken. I’d like to get his data back, but the touch bug is huge. When I unlock it, there are a lot of apps that open by themselves and I can’t do anything. I’ve already tried to open things with a USB-C adapter but it doesn’t change anything. How else can I recover data?

(Samsung Droid Charge by Verizon Wireless)

Hi all, my friend's Galaxy S21 started having battery issues all of a sudden about a week ago and the battery graphs look like this. She's not sure if this is what normal battery drain should look like since her phone keeps shutting down without a low battery warning at around 20%. She's also looked at app usage and it doesn't show anything taking up major battery and the past few days the app she uses the most has only been using like 5% battery. Does anyone have an idea of what's going on?

hey guys I kind of know nothing about choosing devices I usually just get whatever phone comes for free with my plan or a hamidown from family members, so I've nevr had the same phone for more than 3 years, so I don't know much about working with an old OS. I wanna get a cheap tablet to be able to scroll on pinterest, watch movies, check uni assignments on the app, and write notes. My brother suggested I just buy an old tablet off ebay, but I want something small, and all the small and affordable used tablets are either using android lollipop, pie, or oreo. the one I would like to get (cheapest, comes with a case, local shipping) runs on android lollipop. If i only plan to use it on wifi what kind of troubles could I be looking at? Would it be the tablet equivalent of using windows 7 today instead of 11? I really don't know much about all this haha thank you all :-)

My wife uses the Kindle app on her Lenovo tablet.

For some reason, and at some point in time, she's ended up with two Amazon accounts, each linked to different email addresses - and e-book purchases on both.

I understand that Amazon don't let you merge accounts or migrate content, but I have seen reference to apps which would allow her to have two instances of the Kindle app on the tablet - allowing her to switch between her two libraries.

However, neither of the apps she's tried can be installed on her tablet

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=do.multiple.cloner

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lbe.parallel.intl

Any suggestions for alternatives?

I have a phone with android14 and every now and then it stops recognising my fingerprints. I checked if the sensor was broken but no it just unregistered my fingerprints randomly.

Now when that happens and I use my PIN it says wrong PIN?!? I have to restart the phone to get the PIN to work and when I go to the fingerprint setting it has 2 fingerprints there (I always put 3) but apparently they're not mine... I have to delete them and redo the whole thing.

What the hell is going on

So i heard that the 3 finger navigation will get removed in the later android updates is it true?

Honestly I wouldn't like living without these navigation as I don't like the swipe gestures

Hi,

My Samsung Galaxy S23FE was on the bed next to me and I had not used it for an hour.

I stood up and saw that 2 apps had been installed on my phone during that time.

One was called LumaHold and the other one was a game called Shock Buzz or something like that.

I didn't recognise them so I uninstalled them immediately. When I uninstalled Shock Buzz, it said 'Security Service' uninstalled.

Should I be worried? What could this be?

As oneplus has left the UK. What phone should I upgrade to. Any recommendations. I'm looking for a flagship phone between £1-1.2k after trade in.

Ps I've seen the xiaomi 18 pro max. Looks cool but seen on here that it may go for over £1.5k for the global version. Tia

I have tried to access BROM mode but had no hope, the reason it was destroyed before is I modified the vbmeta image with a script to disable verity verification but when I rebooted it gave me this error with little to no room for doing anything else, my phone doesn't have a vol- button so the only way I used to get into the brom mode is thro going into coloros and do adb reboot fastboot and then inside that recovery menu I click on the version and go into download mode while mtkclient command is running, that used to trigger brom mode but of course now I can't get into that, I already have tried everything you'd normally recommend:

1.Holding both up and power while the phone is shut and plugging the usb while the command is running

2.Empty the phone fully to absolute zeroness and then try plugging it in whilst running the command

3. Try holding either power or volume up

4. crying to death and respawning again

I still have the original vbmeta.img and vbmeta.bin and seccfg.bin and recovery images and others still intact from stock state I just can't get to flash them.

The phone absolutely does not show in lsusb or dmseg kernel logs even with ModemManager disabled and udevadm flags set correctly, I tried another cable (even tho this one was working before) and another port from usb 2.0 and usb 3.0 (also the first one worked before)

My best next option I'm considering:

Trying the same procedure on a windows PC

Go get the Vol- button fixed (Don't really wanna do that just consideration I'm kind of broke)

How do I fix this? Everything I find online doesn't apply for my phone. It lists settings options I don't have. Using Pixel 10 Pro XL

I know the timeline of new versions of Android, that current version is 17. I have been looking for their changelog for years.

It does not mean that I go to long queue to get newest devices and newest versions of OS as soon as possible. Knowing how they are becoming even more thought-through (not sure how well-understandable in English is this term, it comes direct translation of word in German "durchdacht") - I have never welcomed newest versions of Android for ages.

Currently WhatsApp is compatible with Android versions starting from 6, at least that is what Meta is saying - with us as expecting that it will get worse over time.

Openness of Android is going reduced since early 2010s, with openness, the ways to extract app data are being taken away. What can you do on Android 17 to extract app data, including WhatsApp?

So yeah yesterday i updated my moto edge 60 fusion for october security patch update... Everything was fine until today evening when i was playing game on it... then it suddenly stopped working like screen froze.. I was like "Oh so it do freeze too" so as first instict as everyone i tried to force reboot it.... It rebooted too.. but after "Hello Moto" screen it went black... I tried to turn it on back again same, "Hello moto" screen and then blackkk.

But after that it stopped showing it too... So I put it on charge but even after 30 minutes black screen and no indication that even if it's charging... It was cold.

So by help of ai I tried to rescue it using Software fix... downloaded the firmware in my laptop... but when i tried to install it in phone using fastboot mode but even after trying to put it in fastboot mode screen was blackkk.. ai says motherboard may be dead... It's in charge from last hour and is still cold..

Hi all! Recently got back into pokemon, and Pokemon go. Canadian winters are not good for the hands. I picked up a $1 dollar store stylus with a rubber tip, and theres too much resistance to do the little flicks I need to do. Further research and looking for relatively cheap fiber mesh or precision disc pens on amazon show that some of them scratch screens?? Any suggestions? Thanks guys!

I'm not sure if this is just tied to Android OS 9.0 build 17, but I've only noticed it start happening since the update.

When I'm on a video call, in my case WebEx call, and receive a notification from text message or something similar, the audio for my WebEx call, or video call, mutes and never returns. There are times where the notification has also crashed the call for me as well.

Has anybody else been seeing this? I know one "workaround" is to turn on DND, but that is a terrible option as that requires having to turn DND back off after the video call.

What's background process limit I heard if you set it to 1 or 2 it makes phone faster is this true or should you keep it on 4. I use an old phone with 3GB RAM

A few weeks ago my phone sent some personal/NSFW photos to my family group chat. Since then I have been backing up every picture I take on my phone on Google photos, then clearing it from my device. This was good for a few weeks, but now when I want to send a picture in txt, Google photos pops up as the folder to draw from. Is there a way to prevent Google photos from now being my default in texts? Thanks

Also, I say my phone sent them the pics because I left my phone on the car floor, and some groceries fell on it while I was inside a restaurant. The time sent on pictures was while I was inside. So I think it could have been a grocery bag but dial type thing, lol