Develop Bugs

[Q] Gallery App lag / bug?

I've posted something on android central forums, but I'm trying to figure out if I'm the only one having this issue. I recently bought a GN3, coming from a moto x (which I loved, just wanted bigger screen). I've disabled as many apps and samsung features as I can and got the phone setup as "stock" as I can get it. However, I'm seeing a HUGE amount of lag in the gallery app. I'm going to try to get another device to make a video, but it's REALLY bad. I have 2 photos on the device at the moment and it can take about 10 seconds to load one once it's tapped. Then zooming or trying to share the photo can take another 20 seconds. It's REALLY slow.
Also, it's curently using about 130mb of ram (using the built in samsung active apps) which is more than any other app currently running, but it's been as high as 500mb+ with the same 2 photos in my gallery. It almost seems like a bug / memory leak issue. I'm just wondering if I'm the ONLY one experiencing this or it's a global issue.
I've done all updates available so it's running 4.4.2 with the VOLTE update. I can't find any other posts specifically related to the gallery app.
Just thought I'd mention, I don't like the gallery app and have no need for it, except the samsung camera ONLY seems to work with that app, not google photos which is what I was using on my moto x.
Before anyone asks, I've tried pretty much everything you can think of related to clearing cache, data, rebooting, and I'm not syncing picasa web albums. I don't use facebook or any other services that would display through gallery.
Any thoughts?? This is a pretty annoying bug for an otherwise excellent phone.
***UPDATE 8-10-14***
This seems to be a bug with samsungs nearby services services and DLNA servers. I'm running Plex on my local network and every time I open gallery it looks like it's trying to contact / sync something with Plex. I'm not serving photo's so I'm not sure exactly what it's trying to do but it's quite annoying. It doesn't look like there's any fix on the phone itself unless you are rooted and you can disable the service. The only other option is turning off DLNA in plex or turning off UPNP on router. Just thought I'd share if anyone else was experiencing the same issue.

(Q) How can I disable Instant Apps for Android

Like the title says, I've noticed since updating to 7.1.2 at least 2-3 times a day I am thrown a notification for "updating Instant Apps" but it never tells me if it was updated or installed. I tried going to Settings -> Google -> Instant Apps and it is disabled yet these apps are auto-downloading and installing in the background. I have auto-updates off on the play store but this still occurs.
Is there anything I can do to disable or at least cripple the instant apps? I'm reading the purpose of instant apps is so you can try an application without installing it, I do not want to test drive apps like Buzzfeed so however I can disable it would be great

fatapia said:
Like the title says, I've noticed since updating to 7.1.2 at least 2-3 times a day I am thrown a notification for "updating Instant Apps" but it never tells me if it was updated or installed. I tried going to Settings -> Google -> Instant Apps and it is disabled yet these apps are auto-downloading and installing in the background. I have auto-updates off on the play store but this still occurs.
Is there anything I can do to disable or at least cripple the instant apps? I'm reading the purpose of instant apps is so you can try an application without installing it, I do not want to test drive apps like Buzzfeed so however I can disable it would be great
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, using Titanium Backup I couldn't find the package com.google.android.instantapps.supervisor but using a root explorer I found the application in /data/app/com.google.android.instantapps.supervisor-2
I also found saved data in /data/data/com.google.android.apps.instantapps.supervisor
I have no idea if this will prevent the service from auto-updating as it has been without permission but I know where it is now...
Update: Deleting both folders causing settings to crash when you go to Settings -> Google -> Instant apps, so it might be deleted off my phone entirely. I will update if I see the application re-install itself

Instant apps are temporary apps. So you can't uninstall them or disable it. It's a feature built into Android that is not going away. Your only option is to install a rom without Gapps. Otherwise deal with it.
Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

superchilpil said:
Instant apps are temporary apps. So you can't uninstall them or disable it. It's a feature built into Android that is not going away. Your only option is to install a rom without Gapps. Otherwise deal with it.
Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
deleting those two files seemed to have broken that feature.
My issue was that I disabled that service through settings as suggested by one of the google support pages but it would still download and install "Instant Apps" the service throughout the day, not the actual temporary apps themselves. So it's been dealt with lol

oh man, when i saw this i thought i had a virus on my phone.
especially when i couldn't find anything named "instant apps" in the app drawer

I am hoping that this will work for me as well. The first time I saw the instant apps pop up I just connected to a free wifi in Mexico and freaked out. This seriously bothers me. I uninstalled it and it came back update after update. I also will not be using any instant apps, so this is something I want to break.

speedee12 said:
I am hoping that this will work for me as well. The first time I saw the instant apps pop up I just connected to a free wifi in Mexico and freaked out. This seriously bothers me. I uninstalled it and it came back update after update. I also will not be using any instant apps, so this is something I want to break.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
some how it was pushed back on to my phone. this is not a permanent solution...

so I'm trying to disable this through other means now and I found something interesting? I need someone with more experience to chime in as far as what these* lines* do*.. and where I found it...
so in /data/data/com.google.android.apps.instantapps.supervisor/shared_prefs/phenotypeConfigurations.xml there are these three lines:
<boolean name="Supervisor__enable_instant_apps" value="true" />
<boolean name="Supervisor__disable_url_resolution" value="false" />
<boolean name="TestFeature__enable_test" value="true" />
I flipped the value of these three entries to see if this will disable it. I find it odd that for the first line it was set for "true" when the settings say it's off. I will update again if I see this come back. My coworker had suggested that this may be built in to the Google app itself? Let's see...

so I had to unroot my phone because I forgot to log into snapchat, then re-root after, and Instant Apps was back yet again. The changes I made to the XML file persisted but the app was back.
I think I found a way to remove it entirely. I used Root Explorer, idk what other applications would work for this. So I navigated back to /data/app/com.google.android.instantapps.supervisor-1 and I clicked the base.apk and I had an option to uninstall, I did this then rebooted my phone to see if reboots are why it fixes itself except the entry for Instant Apps has been removed from settings. This appears to permanently remove this feature.

every time I think I fix this it keeps coming back lol, I finally called Google Support and this is the first they are hearing of it. The application re-installed itself at 430-some Mountain Time on it's own, other times it re-installs upon reboot. I'm going to find a way to cripple it if google cant
I recommend calling support to let them know that Instant Apps is enabled even though the switch says it is disabled.

fatapia said:
every time I think I fix this it keeps coming back lol, I finally called Google Support and this is the first they are hearing of it. The application re-installed itself at 430-some Mountain Time on it's own, other times it re-installs upon reboot. I'm going to find a way to cripple it if google cant
I recommend calling support to let them know that Instant Apps is enabled even though the switch says it is disabled.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same annoyances, "Installig Instant apps" notification appears randomly during the last month, and reading in the logcat they are updates/patches to the new feature, managed by finsky app (Play Store). The most scaring thing is that one time it appeared also during mobile data connection, which is not acceptable (and 800kb background data from Play Store). Google is being too aggressive with it. Why not simply integrate it and update it along with Play Services like the other 1000 google APIs ? !on WIFI!
Thank you for your tests, unfortunately the update process seems to be triggered by Google Play services itself or by Google play store.
I searched for related alarms/wakelocks in Amplify and could only found one wakelock coming from com.google.android.apps.instantapps.supervisor itself: .ExperimentUpdateService. I decided to keep it as this probably isn't the trigger.

ninestarkoko said:
I have the same annoyances, "Installig Instant apps" notification appears randomly during the last month, and reading in the logcat they are updates/patches to the new feature, managed by finsky app (Play Store). The most scaring thing is that one time it appeared also during mobile data connection, which is not acceptable (and 800kb background data from Play Store). Google is being too aggressive with it. Why not simply integrate it and update it along with Play Services like the other 1000 google APIs ? !on WIFI!
Thank you for your tests, unfortunately the update process seems to be triggered by Google Play services itself or by Google play store.
I searched for related alarms/wakelocks in Amplify and could only found one wakelock coming from com.google.android.apps.instantapps.supervisor itself: .ExperimentUpdateService. I decided to keep it as this probably isn't the trigger.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah that's now my only worrisome complaint is that it ignores the play store settings and will download over any network connection. You can try submitting feedback through settings and suggest they fix this part so that it updates as you said. Thanks for the additional info, I'll try disabling that and report back if it makes any difference. I doubt that's the source of the problem though so I uninstall the apk so something else must be initiating it.

Thank you guys for this thread! I have the regular Pixel and have been seeing this happen... "Instant Apps" was disabled but somehow still updating either itself or something else, and I wondered if there was an additional switch somewhere to disable it. Looks like the answer is no. ?
Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

So I noticed every time the play store found an update, magically Instant Apps was back. I began to notice that this may be a service built into Play Store and not the Google app itself. So I had an idea, I went into Settings for Android and turned off background data for Play services. Obviously this will affect quite a bit, but honestly I am at that point from fighting this feature that I'd gladly give that up. So far after 2 days I have not seen the application re-install itself. It has been more permanent that the other solutions I've had so far.
There's an article from XDA in Analysis and Opinion talking about Instant Apps and Play Store 7.8.15, apparently this issue is affecting people all the way down to the Samsung S5... although people are hesistant to believe this issue exists for whatever reason.

You can cripple it by restricting its access to internet via firewall. Unfortunately this method also drives up battery consumption as the firewall does jujitsu with "Google Play services for Instant Apps" - I am actively fantasizing about taking my baby sledge to this thing and going back to a "dumb"-phone that doesn't have all this drama constantly! I'm using an S5 right now. This is definitely a google thing. They have a similar self-install-without-asking "feature" on windows via their chrome browser. Just look up "SwReporter" in that program's directory. It self-populates with an executable as you use chrome normally and there is no option in the program for it to not do that. You can safely make a shortcut to that directory and empty it out regularly to restrict its functionality which is presumably for keeping an eye on you. I am also trying an alternate method of changing security to prevent write access to that directory. I have no idea how to do that on an unrooted android. Any ideas? And does anybody know how to cripple "instant apps" malware/spyware backdoor "feature" on an unrooted device without eating battery like crazy?

Today I noticed that Instant Apps was installing without my permission. When I clicked on that notification, it brought me to the Google Play Store. (In Google Play Store, I have auto updates disabled.) I have an unrooted Galaxy Note 4 and I can't even find the settings for Instant Apps under the Google settings. Why aren't the settings there? I found the app in the Apps settings called "Google Play services for Instant Apps" (thank you G1A). I cleared it's the cache and data and then uninstalled it. So I'm assuming it will not come back but you never know.
EDIT: Well the "Google Play services for Instant Apps" reinstalled itself AGAIN WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. Getting sick of tired of Google's POMPOUS business ethics.

If it reinstalled itself.... then his would require root privileges in order to disable.

yeah this issue is annoying, it seems to initiate the download upon every reboot and each time it checks the play store for updates for any of your apps.
I found a way to disable it but it required freezing the app through Titanium Backup. I have NO CLUE why I couldn't see Instant Apps before in this list but it is listed as "Google Play Services for Instant Apps." It does not re-install or try to even download, does not show in Settings under Google, but if you look at the app itself in settings you will see it does still run. I am not sure to what extent but yeeeaahhh at least it doesnt seem like it can run anything

No problem As an update, changing security permissions (specifically for writing) for chrome's target folder Definitely (in windows 10) serves as an effective measure to blockade its ability to regenerate itself. This same method also works for microsoft edge located in the C-Windows-SystemApps folder. I presume that the programming methods would be analogous with android on google's end. Anybody know how to restrict write access to a folder on android? So long as it checks for a folder existing and it does exist (multi-decade programming approach) then it attempts to write to that folder. However, because it's already running in stealth mode (aka background) then it will never show an error message when it fails to execute, and it won't report back either, as that functionality depends on the contents of the targeted folder it is denied access to. It should be effectively crippled without excessive CPU consumption if you can just restrict its ability to write to the default folder that it installs itself in. Any ideas how to execute this kind of blockade?
UPDATE: As a way to cripple not Instant Apps specifically, but an entire host of functionality on the android platform, something called "Power Saving Mode" seems to knock out a key background runtime required for this pest to run. Unfortunately it doesn't let you pick and choose what it shuts off, so other useful apps may lose their functionality too. Post if anybody finds a more app-specific method!

Does this crap have its own separate package? If so, you could uninstall it and make a dummy APK having the same package name. This could prevent "updates" due to signing key conflicts, but might also break things...

Google photos app crashes all the time on open

Son got a S9 for Xmas. However on opening Google Photos it just crashes instantly. Can't open it at all. This is a standard UK S9. Pretty disappointing on a inbuilt app doing this from out of the box.
It seems to be a very common issue looking on web. Is this a Samsung problem or a Google, or Amdroid problem? and is there a fix yet anywhere?
Thanks

MrMrMr111 said:
Son got a S9 for Xmas. However on opening Google Photos it just crashes instantly. Can't open it at all. This is a standard UK S9. Pretty disappointing on a inbuilt app doing this from out of the box.
It seems to be a very common issue looking on web. Is this a Samsung problem or a Google, or Amdroid problem? and is there a fix yet anywhere?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See if the Play Store has any updates available for it. Maybe its been fixed by Google. If not I'd guess maybe clearing the cache/data of the Google Photos app might help. If you press and hold on an app there should popup an option with "app info". From there there should be a storage option and once selected it should list how much storage is being used as cache and data. Try clearing the cache first and see if that fixes it. If not go for the clear data option.

Yeh tried all that. All up to date, tried restarting, clear cache etc. Looks like a wide ranging problem as well. Very frustrating, open brand new phone out of box and get this have to say, not impressed so far with Android.

MrMrMr111 said:
Yeh tried all that. All up to date, tried restarting, clear cache etc. Looks like a wide ranging problem as well. Very frustrating, open brand new phone out of box and get this have to say, not impressed so far with Android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you updated Android itself? Probably a couple of updates behind out of the box
Plus Android Pie is available for certain regions now, could always update to that using ODIN
I would also try factory resetting the phone if nothing else works
Also if you go to the apps info page and hit the 3 dots top right menu, there should be an uninstall updates button, it will revert back to the factory installed version of the app

Are you using Swift Installer?
Sent from my SM-G960U1 using Tapatalk

Don't bother using Google photos especially to back up motion photos if your using that on the phone as it doesn't back them up properly and when restoring just gives back a normal photo just use the samsung gallery app until the photos app is working again.

Anyway to keep Google Phone app from being disabled at boot?

I have the unlocked model LG-G820QM running Android 10 software version G820QM20a.
I'm using the Google Phone Dialer app instead of the default phone app. It works perfectly fine and can be set as the default app. However it is disabled every time the phone boots. I'll see it on the screen for a second and then it's gone. I have to go back into the play store to enable it, add it to my home screen, and reset it as default every time.
Has anyone else experienced this or know of anything I can do to stop this from happening?

Hmm... wonder if adb disabling the LG phone app (com.android.phone, or maybe there's a more specific package for this?), then installing the Google Phone app would work. Disabling the LG app may cause some pages in About device to not load (i.e. Network information), but it's easy to re-enable, so if anything goes wrong you can go back.

sk8223 said:
Hmm... wonder if adb disabling the LG phone app (com.android.phone, or maybe there's a more specific package for this?), then installing the Google Phone app would work. Disabling the LG app may cause some pages in About device to not load (i.e. Network information), but it's easy to re-enable, so if anything goes wrong you can go back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you sk8223, I gave that a shot.
I used Application Inspector to track down the stock phone app name and then ran this command.
Code:
adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 com.android.phone
While that did stop the Google phone app (com.google.android.dialer) from disabling at boot, it broke phone functionality. I kept getting a pop up that com.android.phone keeps stopping. Trying to use the Google phone/dialer app wouldn't connect. It would let me enter the number, but then clicking the call button just caused it to reset.
I also tried disabling the stock Contacts app com.android.contacts, and that didn't solve anything. I tried combinations of both stock phone and contacts disabled. One of each. And the same with the Google equivalents.
You're probably right about there being some link in the chain that I can disable to solve this, but it seems there are quite a few dependencies baked in to the phone applications, that I'm not sure which service I could disable to let the Google app work without the actual phone functionality breaking.
Interestingly enough I couldn't re-enable either the Google Phone or Contacts app from adb after reboot. However I could navigate to them in the Play Store and click enable there. Then checking the disabled apps list in adb showed they were no longer there.

That's weird, you should have been able to adb pm enable the apps again without issue. I think LG's heavy skin over Android is affecting the way the app is supposed to work. Probably because the stock LG Phone app is labelled com.android.phone when it really should be com.lg.phone... which is probably why upon reboot the phone app keeps reverting back. Stupid LG. Wish a safe BL unlock was possible so we can get a nice AOSP ROM on the G8 already
tl;dr don't think this can be fixed because of LG

Question Bugs - Voice Dictation & Lock screen Text

Hi all!
I got my RM8P yesterday. I really like the device, but definitely see the software lackings that everyone has mentioned.
My current bugs:
1. I copied my data from my Pixel 6 Pro to the RMP8. It also copied the lock screen text I had "My Google Pixel 6 Pro, *****es". So when I go into personalized setting to try to change this text, it won't let me. When I click the option, it just goes back to the Settings menu.
2. More importantly, my voice dictation/voice to text functionality is now broken. It was fine until this afternoon when I updated a bunch of apps in Play Store. Now, no voice dictation is working for any app. I've tried every possible app and rebooting. The OK Google still works so it's "hearing" my voice in general.
Any feedback?
Thanks!
EDIT: I figured out that enabling Google Assistant (Hey Google) broke the voice dictation. Strange that it breaks it.

darbylonia said:
Hi all!
I got my RM8P yesterday. I really like the device, but definitely see the software lackings that everyone has mentioned.
My current bugs:
1. I copied my data from my Pixel 6 Pro to the RMP8. It also copied the lock screen text I had "My Google Pixel 6 Pro, *****es". So when I go into personalized setting to try to change this text, it won't let me. When I click the option, it just goes back to the Settings menu.
2. More importantly, my voice dictation/voice to text functionality is now broken. It was fine until this afternoon when I updated a bunch of apps in Play Store. Now, no voice dictation is working for any app. I've tried every possible app and rebooting. The OK Google still works so it's "hearing" my voice in general.
Any feedback?
Thanks!
EDIT: I figured out that enabling Google Assistant (Hey Google) broke the voice dictation. Strange that it breaks it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was about to tell you that disabling hey google fixed the dictation thing. The first os layer is funny af, it does that and doesn't carry the swipe between apps gesture. And a bunch of things, I worked the hey google with the swipe from a corner gesture tbh I don't use Google assistant that much but still it was a thing

Alextakatu said:
I was about to tell you that disabling hey google fixed the dictation thing. The first os layer is funny af, it does that and doesn't carry the swipe between apps gesture. And a bunch of things, I worked the hey google with the swipe from a corner gesture tbh I don't use Google assistant that much but still it was a thing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't use hey Google assistant too often, but I do use it occasionally. It's just strange that I have to choose between enabling that functionality and enabling voice dictation. I guess I'll choose the voice dictation and give up Google assistant or enable it when I feel I need to use it at times. I'm not sure it's a Red Magic thing as it may be a broader Android thing.

darbylonia said:
I don't use hey Google assistant too often, but I do use it occasionally. It's just strange that I have to choose between enabling that functionality and enabling voice dictation. I guess I'll choose the voice dictation and give up Google assistant or enable it when I feel I need to use it at times. I'm not sure it's a Red Magic thing as it may be a broader Android thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pretty sure it's only a redmagic thing. Their support has been largely useless when I attempted to alert them to this issue.

darbylonia said:
Hi all!
I got my RM8P yesterday. I really like the device, but definitely see the software lackings that everyone has mentioned.
My current bugs:
1. I copied my data from my Pixel 6 Pro to the RMP8. It also copied the lock screen text I had "My Google Pixel 6 Pro, *****es". So when I go into personalized setting to try to change this text, it won't let me. When I click the option, it just goes back to the Settings menu.
2. More importantly, my voice dictation/voice to text functionality is now broken. It was fine until this afternoon when I updated a bunch of apps in Play Store. Now, no voice dictation is working for any app. I've tried every possible app and rebooting. The OK Google still works so it's "hearing" my voice in general.
Any feedback?
Thanks!
EDIT: I figured out that enabling Google Assistant (Hey Google) broke the voice dictation. Strange that it breaks it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello, I have Alexa installed as the main assistant, if you select it as the default transcription program, it already works for you to transcribe messages. The failure after several tests I have realized that when you select Google as an assistant it stops working, the mobile does not listen to you. I have already opened several incidents on the Magic network page but they only tell me that I formatted the mobile.