Market upgrade to v2.2.11 and loss of application links

A couple of days ago my Desire Z silently updated the Market application to v2.2.11.

No idea what the update actually brings (I guess stability fixes) but it had the side effect of removing all application links in the "My Apps" section. That means that no application was listed as Installed, and the only apps in the screen were the purchased ones.

After trying to use the Market Doctor feature of Titanium Backup Pro (yes, I've paid for it) with little to no effect, I decided to delete the Market app's data.

And that was it. All applications were listed properly.

To delete the data, from the home screen go to
"Menu->Settings->Applications->Manage Applications->All->Market" and press the "Force Stop" button to stop the Market App from running, and the press the "Clear Data" button.

When you start the Market again, everything should be listed normally.

I can't guarantee that this will work for everyone or that it won't break anything else!

Changing the build.prop on a X5A-G

The following procedure will make Skype work on a X5A-G, make sure that the unit is using the screen space properly (no more big icons) and possibly make it a bit smoother.

Make sure you are rooted, and that adb recognises the device.

Type the following to download the build.prop file to your harddrive:

 adb -d pull /system/build.prop  

Open the build.prop file with a text editor and set the following properties as follows:

 dalvik.vm.heapsize=32m  
 ro.sf.lcd_density=160  
 ro.kernel.android.checkjni=0  

And add the following line at the end

 dalvik.vm.execution-mode=int:fast  

Save it, and type the following to send the file back to the device.

 adb -d remount  
 adb -d push build.prop /system/build.prop  
 adb -d reboot  

If you get any error messages after the "adb -d remount" line, then you do not have root...

Edit: fixed missing '=' sign in the 'dalvik.vm.execution-mode=int:fast' line...

HSG X5A and ADB Drivers

Similar to the previous posts about the Desire Z and Android devices in general, the lines you need to follow the following procedure to get a HSG X5A (which  is actually a decent device which can playback full HD with no problems):

1. Make sure you have updated the SDK and the USB driver to the latest version.
2. Open the android_winusb.inf file (located under the android-sdk-windows\usb_driver directory) using a text editor. I personally prefer Notepad++.
3. Add the following lines under the [Google.NTx86] and [Google.NTamd64] sections:

;
;HSG X5A
%SingleAdbInterface%        = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_DEED
%CompositeAdbInterface%     = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_DEED&MI_01
;

4. Save the file
5. Try to install the driver again.

This might work with other HSG tablets (or their rebrands).

HTC Desire Z (AKA HTC Vision AKA T-Mobile G2) and ADB drivers

I just got myself a Desire Z and once again the ADB drivers fail to install in windows.

It is the same problem described and solved in this post.

To fix:
1. Make sure you have updated the SDK and the USB driver to the latest version.
2. Open the android_winusb.inf file (located under the android-sdk-windows\usb_driver directory) using a text editor. I personally prefer Notepad++.
3. Add the following lines under the [Google.NTx86] and [Google.NTamd64] sections:

 ;Desire Z  
 %SingleAdbInterface%    = USB_Install, USB\VID_0BB4&PID_0C91  
 %CompositeAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_0BB4&PID_0C91&MI_01  
 ;  

4. Save the file
5. Try to install the driver again.

If it still fails to load, follow the instructions from this post to find the correct VID and PID of your phone.

"Unable to open connection to server" error when connecting to Exchange on Android 2.2

There seems to be a problem when using the default Android Email application to connect to an Exchange Server 2010 SP1.

When you go through the setup procedure and enter all necessary info to setup a new account on the phone, the setup will eventually fail throwing a "Setup could not finish" "Unable to open connection to server." message.

On the server side, the following log is generated:

 RequestBody :   
 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>  
 <FolderSync xmlns="FolderHierarchy:">  
      <SyncKey>0</SyncKey>  
 </FolderSync>  
   
 AccessState :   
 Blocked  
   
 AccessStateReason :   
 Policy  
   
 ResponseHeader :   
 HTTP/1.1 449 Retry after sending a PROVISION command  
 MS-Server-ActiveSync: 14.1  

Google is aware of this (http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=11177) and they calim to have fixed it but it is unknown when an update will be pushed.

The interesting thing though is that the Email application which is included with the 2.2 emulator seems to be working fine. So what we will do is extract the Email.apk from the emulator and install it on the phone.

Requirements: Rooted device, installed ADB and Android 2.2 Emulator.
Note: This will remove any improvements a ROM developer has included in Email.apk.
Disclaimer: I am not responsible if by doing this you damage your phone/data/life in an way. Backup your data first, preferably by making a Nandroid backup.

Autostart script changes for Calibre 0.7.27

In version 0.7.27 of calibre, the "auto reload" command has been unbundled from "--develop". As a result, the script in the previous post has to be updated. Only the script changes, the rest of the procedure is the same.

The "DEMON_ARGS" line changes from

  DAEMON_ARGS="--develop --with-library=$CONTENT --pidfile=$PIDFILE --port=$PORT --max-cover=$MAX_COVER --daemonize"   

to

 DAEMON_ARGS="--auto-reload --with-library=$CONTENT --pidfile=$PIDFILE --port=$PORT --max-cover=$MAX_COVER --daemonize" 

The full updated script can be found after the break:

Downloading and Parsing the IEEE MAC address OUI to a CSV in VB.Net

The following function will parse a OUI file and create a CSV file where each line will contain the first six characters of MAC address and the company they are registered to. To see how a OUI file looks like click here (it is a couple megabytes long).A function to download the OUI (or any file via HTTP) is also provided after the break.

It takes two parameters: "FileInPath" is the location of the OUI file and "FileOutPath" is the path of the CSVyou want to save to. If no file is there, one will be created automatically.