Tag: Galaxy

  • Reinstall Apps, Themes and Watch faces purchased on Samsung Galaxy Story

    After reinstalling my Gear S2 to connect it with a new Galaxy phone, I couldn’t find how to reinstall watch faces bought years ago.

    This can be done using the “Galaxy Store” app.

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    1. “Galaxy Store” is an app preinstalled on Galaxy phones. Open it (Configuring your Samsung account if not yet done).
    2. Tap the 3 vertical dots on top right of screen
    3. Select “My page” (previously named “My Apps”).
    4. Select “All”
    5. Select the Watch, Apps or Themes
    6. Then re-download what you wish.

    To manage your Watch, install the “Galaxy Wearable ” App (previously named Galaxy Gear) via the Google App Store.

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  • Add AC3 support within MX Player on Samsung Galaxy S7 

    By default, MX player doesn’t support ac3 audio due to licensing issue. Using a custom codec solves this.

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    Don’t download  and install the «NEON Codec 1.8.9 for Android 6+» usually suggested for MX player in order to support AC3 (available on Google play as «MX Player Codec for ARMv7 NEON CPUs»).

    Instead, download the custom codec for arm v7 neon 1.8.6 (available here). Unzip that file, open MX Player, click on the menu …, go to  settings > decoder. Scroll down to the very bottom and select Custom Codec.  There, pick the file libffmpeg.mx.so.neon.1.8.6 you have just unzipped.

    MX Player will next restart. You can now try a video with ac3 codec. Ex.: download a sample from here.

    Et voilà.

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  • Awful Bluetooth Audio Quality on Galaxy S7

    Since I have my Galaxy S7, I only connected it twice with my Philips Bluetooth headphones CB8100. Once to play with an Oculus Game and once to listen music. Twice, I was surprised how bad was the reception. Sound was crackly and skipping continuously. It was due to the WiFi !!

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    When I used my headphones to play an Oculus gamen I thought that the mobile was not powerful enough to stream the sound via Bluetooth while playing the video. Weird, but ok… it was also not powerful enough to mirror the video on my Samsung TV, so….

    But when it failed also to stream fluently music, either from YouTube or from by DS Audio Stations (Synology), I thought there should be a reason behind this.

    As it’s known that Bluetooth and WiFi are both using the frequency 2.4GHz, I tried to disable the WiFi… and it solved immediately the problem.

    I never never had such a problem with my previous mobiles 🙁 Also, I am quite sure I would not have that issue if I could connect on a WiFi 5Ghz.

    Support page for GS7 in Belgium is: http://www.samsung.com/be_fr/support/model/SM-G935FZDALUX

    Awful support from Samsung!

    Click to Read More

    I did post a request for support to Samsung on the 2nd May and only got an answer on 20th May. I said that the noise was awful when the Wifi was on and great if it was off. I also said that I had not such issue when streaming from my 300€ OnePlus One mobile (the S7 was 799€) or from my Sony Laptop or from my Lenovo Tablets.

    They answered that “Samsung does not guarantee the proper functioning of Samsung products. with other branded”

    WTF Samsung! Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are standard wireless protocols. My headset works perfect with 3 other brands.

    Numéro de dossier client : 2812699319

    Merci pour votre courriel concernant votre Galaxy S7. Vous indiquez que vous avez un fonctionnement anormal avec votre casque Philips tout en ayant le Wifi activé.

    Nous vous informons que Samsung n’assure pas le bon fonctionnement des produits de marque différente que Samsung avec des produits Samsung.

    Si vous avez des questions vous pouvez toujours contacter notre centre de contact. Cela peut se faire par téléphone, par courriel, Facebook ou Twitter.

    Cordialement,

    EL HARIM Med

    Customer Care Representative

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  • Expand Galaxy S7’s Internal Storage with a SD card

    Samsung does not support officially the “Adoptable Storage” feature available with Android 6.0. But there are many posts on the web explaining how to do it via “ADB” (Android Debug Bridge).

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    Android Marshmallow has the ability to take a SD card and partition it as semi-permanent device storage. But it’s not accessible on the Samsung Galaxy S7.

    I applied this recipes with success: http://www.modaco.com/news/android/heres-how-to-configure-adoptable-storage-on-your-s7-s7-edge-r1632/

    • Download and Install “Samsung Usb Drivers” from http://adbdriver.com/downloads/
    • Download and copy in a folder the “ADB kits” from http://adbshell.com/downloads
    • Enable the “Developer Options” menu via Settings > About Device > Software Info > Type 5 times the “Build number”.
    • Enable “USB debugging” via Settings > Developer Options.
    • Plug your mobile into your PC via an USB cable.
    • Open a command prompt as administrator and type adb shell
    • Type next sm list-disks to see the Disk ID. It looked like this on my phone “disk:179,0”
    • To use 100% of the SD card as internal storage, type sm partition <Disk ID> private
      • Ex.: sm partition disk:179,0 private
    • After formatting the microSD card
      • Reboot
      • Go next into Settings > Storage. Select the “SD card” and hit the menu “More” to “Migrate data”. This moves everything to the SD card. Everything in the future should install to the SD card until it is full and then moves to internal.

    Before this, due to Oculus VR stuff, my internal storage was full although I already moved manually most Apps to the SD card. Now, after the “Migration of the Data” only 18GB are still used out of the 32GB (~13GB have been moved to the SD Card).

    NB.: Since I did this, I notice that moving Apps to the SD often results in an error message : “Not enough storage space”. I usually just retry and then the move succeeds.

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  • To switch or not to switch from Google to Outlook.com ?

    I was thinking about moving everything from my Google account (mails, calendar and contact) to my Windows Live account since I am using that account from Outlook 2013 on several personal computers to keep them in sync…

    After some investigation, I will only use the Calendar of my Windows Live account…

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    Since a long time now, I am using two great tools (both free) to synchronize the Outlook Local Accounts of all my PC (at home and at work) with my Google Account (which was sync with my Galaxy S2):

    1. Google Sync: to sync my calendar both way
    2. Go Contact Sync mod: to sync my contacts both way

    Now, I am planning to use my Windows Live account account instead of my Google account as a central repository for my calendars and contacts: it’s actually the Windows Live Hotmail feature which is concerned; a.k.a. Outlook.com.

    For mails, I will continue to use my own mail server at Servage.net (with imap support). Actually, my main email address is a forwarded to my Gmail address, where the best free spam filter ever made available is applied. Next, the mails are forwarded back to a servage’s mail box that I access via imap from all my devices/PC.

    So… what should I do to use outlook.com instead of google on my PC and Galaxy S2 ?

    1. Install the Outlook.com sync feature on the Android device. First feedback:
      • It’s great for keeping your Android Calendar in sync with your Outlook.com calendar
      • It’s great for using your Outlook.com contacts from your Android.
      • But it’s really disappointing as contacts can’t be edited
      • And, about the synchronization of the emails, notice that it may only fetch emails from the last 30 days…
    2. Add Outlook.com as a new account in Outlook 2013
      1. Go to the menu File and click on the button Add Account in the Account Information pane.
      2. Select Manual setup or additional server types and click Next.
      3. Select Outlook.com or Exchange ActiveSync compatible service.
      4. Add your User information and Logon information, using the Mail Server: blu-m.hotmail.com
    3. Define Outlook.com account as the default account in Outlook 2013
      1. Go to the menu File and select the Exchange ActiveSync account (Outlook.com) in the Account Information pane.
      2. From the Account Settings drop-down menu select Account Settings…
      3. In the E-mail tab, select your Exchange ActiveSync account and click on Set as Default (Except if you want to send and receive your email with another account by default).
      4. In the Data Files tab, select your Exchange ActiveSync account and click on Set as Default (If you don’t do that, meetings will be created in the local account which is currently the default one).
    4. Export the calendar from Google
      1. Go to Google Calendar
      2. Expand the menu of My Calendars and select Parameters
      3. Click on Export Calendars. A download should start automatically.
      4. Unzip the file downloaded at step C.
    5. Import this google calendar in the Outlook.com account via Outlook 2013
      1. Open the Calendar view (via the bottom-left menu).
      2. Go to the menu File and select Open & Export.
      3. Click on Import/Export in the Open pane.
      4. Select Import an iCalendar (.ics) or vCalendar file (.vcs).
      5. Browse to open the file unzipped at step 4.D and containing the calendar exported from Google Calendar.
    6. Export the contacts from Gmail
      1. Go to Gmail
      2. From the top-left Gmail drop-down menu and select Contacts to open your Google address book.
      3. From the More actions drop-down menu, select Export…
      4. Select next the Outlook CSV format. A download should start automatically.
    7. Import those gmail contacts in Outlook.com (Outlook 2013 does not support to import contacts in the Oultook.com account)
      1. Go to Windows Live Hotmail.
      2. In the top-left drop-down menu Outlook, select People.
      3. Under “Add people to your contact list” select Import from a file.
      4. Click on Choose File and pick the file downloaded at step 6.D and containing the contacts exported from Google Calendar.
      5. Click Import Contacts.
      6. Force a Send/Receive in Outlook 2013 to sync the contacts newly added to the Outlook.com account.
    And now, check what’s working well and what’s not:
    1. Everything is ok with the calendar. I can edit/add/delete appointments from any device and the changes are synchronized on the others.
    2. Well, actually,
      1. Due to how MS handles the “all-day events”, those appears spanned across two days. To fix that, I had to edit all my “all-day events” and save them (without any change).
      2. MS is creating “Anniversary” events for all contacts with a birthday. As those events already exists (e.g.: created manually or automatically by MS Outlook), I had now plenty of duplicates that won’t be detected as one is named “XXX’s birthday” and the other “XXX’s Anniversary” 🙁
    3. I don’t see all my contacts in Outlook 2013.
      • This is a know bug in the Windows Sync feature. A fix is under investigation at MS (to be released in January 2013). As a workaround  you can edit the contacts and save the change. This will force a sync between Outlook.com and Outlook 2013.
      • But I can add new ones and edit existing ones from Outlook 2013 and the changes are synchronized on the devices.
    4. I can’t edit my contact from my Android device.
      • But I see those added through Outlook 2013.
    5. All notes in Contacts are now displayed with the HTML tags instead…
    6. Regarding the emails, I would not like this solution either as I want to be able to access all my emails and not only those of the the last 30 days.
    Linked Outlook.com with Gmail contact instead of importing:

    Instead of importing the contacts from Gmail into Outlook.com, you can link those contacts with your Outlook.com account. Doing so, they are in sync!

    1. Go to Windows Live Hotmail.
    2. In the top-left drop-down menu Outlook, select People.
    3. Under “Add people to your contact list”, in the right pane, select Google Contacts.
    4. Follow the connection wizard (Notice that the import is not immediate but done in background… Also when you change a Google Contact, the change will be not be synchronize immediately).
    Unfortunately, you won’t see the contact linked to Gmail in Outlook 2013 due to the same bug in Windows Sync mentioned above
    Also, you may not modify a Google Contact from Outlook.com (and therefore from Outlook 2013). However, you may add additional information to a Google Contact. This information will be kept in Outlook.com (Concretely a new contact with the same name is created in Outlook.com and linked with the Google Contact. This link can be cut via the menu “Links” appearing in Outlook.com when the contact is selected. For each information, Outlook.com display the origin: Outlook or Google). The new contact created in Outook.com will be sync with Outlook 2013 but it won’t contain any information from Google. You can modify this contact within 2013 and the changes will be synchronized back later with Outlook.com but obviously not with Google  – I was not able to force it or to refresh the contact in Outlook.com…
    So, for me – as far as I want a single repository accessible from not only my PC but also my mobile devices, this approach is pointless.

    How to delete all meetings from Outlook 2013 Calendar:

    If by accident you did import your meetings in the wrong calendar, here is how to select all the items and delete them.

    1. Go to the menu View.
    2. Click on Change View and select List.
    3. Select all the Items pressing Ctrl-A
    4. Press Delete
    How to select all contacts from Outlook.com:
    A really hard one as there is neither a Select-All menu nor a shortcut like Ctrl-A! And just like with Windows 8, it’s nowadays really difficult to guess how Microsoft has implemented some of the most simple operations with the keyboard.
    To Select All your Contacts in Outlook.com:
    1. Select the first contact with your mouse
    2. Press Shift + Page Down.
    Conclusions: 
    I think I hate hotmail (and MS) a little bit more now than before regarding the integration with mobile devices 🙂
    But ok… hotmail is Microsoft’s target mailing solution and I presume they will continue to work on the integration with outlook 2013 and the mobile devices…
    In addition, Googly Calendar Sync will be end of life in January 2013. The download link is already not available anymore…
    So, for now, I will only use the calendar of my Windows Live account. Doing so, I can already get rid of the Googly Sync tool from all my PC.
    But I will keep “Go Contact Sync Mod” tool to sync the contacts as there is really nothing else convenient offered by MS to share them between PCs and mobile devices 🙁 That being said, Go Contact Sync Mod 3.5.20 is really great, free and efficient with Outlook 2013 ! E.g.: In my case, I do sync the Google Contacts directly with my Outlook.com account in Outlook 2013…

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  • Galaxy S2: Hardware ID Missing

    Since a recent Kies update, my Galaxy S2 started to throw the exception “Hardware ID Missing” every time it was plugged into my PC.

    The reason is a “bug” in the version of the SAMSUNG USB Driver for Mobile Phones installed with the Kies update. Fortunately, there is a elementary solution.

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    This solution consists in installing an older version of the Samsung Driver. E.g.:  v1.4.8.0 available here, or 1.4.103 available here. I did use the 1.4.103 with success. No need to uninstall first the version currently installed. You will simply have to confirm during the setup that you want to install that version although another one is already installed.

    This issue prevents Kies to connect with the phone via USB. Concretely you see the “connecting” message for a while as well as a spinning icon looping indefinitely.

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  • Samsung Kies error: PDLR has stopped working

    After a recent update, Kies started to throw the exception “PDLR has stopped working”.

    If you are looking how to solve that issue, I did google on that too and found a radical solution.

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    A solution often mentioned on the web is to remove the following line from the config file (or to completely delete the file) :

    [xml][/xml]

    This config file is located in “%programfiles%\Samsung\Kies\External\FirmwareUpdate\KiesPDLR.exe.config” (on x64 platform: “%programfiles% (x86)”).

    This fix didn’t work for me. But another one did the trick: I did an “advanced” uninstall of Kies using the free “Revo Uninstaller” and did next a fresh re-install.

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