Google Play Music App Unresponsive or Slow

I reverted my Moto G (2013) to the stock ROM and rooted it, but since I did this, I have been having frustrating problems with Play Music that make it unusable:

• Select a song and nothing happens 
• Press play and nothing happens 
• After several minutes a song may play, but pressing pause won't stop it

Killing the running Music app will obviously get a playing song to stop, but the base problem is still there -- the entire app is basically useless.

I tried wiping data for the app, wiping the app's cache, rebooting the phone... nothing helped, and Play Music remained a slug.

SOLUTION:
Today I completely uninstalled the app using Titanium Backup.  Since Google Play Music is a system app, you will need root privileges to do this.

After completely uninstalling the system version of the app from the phone, I re-installed it through the Play Store, and so far it behaves as I expect it to.  Something must be incompatible between the factory version and the "update", however that mechanism (system app vs. "updated" version from market) works in Android.

Update 28-Feb-2015:
This started happening again.  I removed Play Music and re-installed it, and it started behaving again.  It might be due to having a lot of cached music on the phone, I don't know, but it is annoying the hell out of me and I am going to install CyanogenMod again tonight to see if it is a problem with the stock ROM.

GoogleTV Failed to Boot Today (NSZ-GT1)

This morning my kids went downstairs as part of their usual 6:00am weekend routine.  (As a sidenote -- why aren't there Saturday morning cartoons on the major networks anymore?  When did this happen?)  My son came back up and told me that the TV wasn't working so I went down to investigate.

My GoogleTV wasn't booting.  Here are the symptoms:

• The device had a DVD left in it.  I could hear it spinning up when the power button was pressed.  
• The green power light would turn on, as well as the yellow eject light.  The SONY Logo would appear briefly but then disappear.  My TV would act as though there was no signal.  
• The device would sit there as though it was still booting (DVD still spinning at high speed), but eventually the yellow eject button started flashing.

Thinking that the DVD was interfering with the boot process, the first thing I wanted to do was get the disc out of there.  But the device wouldn't let me eject it.  In this case I decided to boot into the service menu to see what options I had.

• Unplug the power from the GoogleTV
• Press and hold the power button, and keep it held down
• Plug in the power while still holding the power button down
• Continue holding the power button down until the service menu appears

Once the service menu appears, you have an option in the menu(s) to eject the DVD.  So, I tried it.  Annnnd I Got my disc out.  Now I tried to restart again.

No dice.  Back to the recovery menu.

At this point I tried the following:

• Wipe/factory reset + reboot (didn't work)
• Recovery (which is a reflash of the software) + factory reset + reboot (didn't work)

Now I'm getting a little concerned.  The first thing I do when I'm concerned about anything like this is turn to Google.  I came across this thread where user flavorhammer describes this process to reset the video output:

Reset the Eagle:
Turn off the power for 5 sec
Turn on the power and wait 30 second (system is rebooting)
Press and hold the Connect and eject buttons
- Connect first then eject: within 1 second of each other
- Hold both buttons until the green power light blinks
- Release both buttons
SiTV BD player will power down and reboot on its own.
SiTV BD player resolution is now set to auto; picture will be visible after splash screens.

So, I did this.  Actually I just approached the device in whatever state it was in (it may have even been off) and tried the connect + eject hold (connect first followed very shortly by eject) and waited to see what would happen.  In a few short moments the device was powering up (I was still holding the button combination down) and it started up!

Because of the several resets and reboots I had to start over with the screen calibration and carrier selection but this was not a big deal.

My GTV is back in business.

[Update Dec 2013] This "no signal" issue has happened a couple of times since.  I am not sure what triggers it or exactly what steps recover from it.  Last night I had this happen, I did a factory reset and update from recovery mode about three times and it would not boot, just showing "no signal".  In frustration, I unplugged the device and unplugged the HDMI cable and left it overnight.  I went back today to try again and it booted up fine after it was plugged in.  (??)

Rooting the Samsung Galaxy S3 and (Optionally) Installing CM10.1

Used without permission from:  http://gurushala.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/CyanogenMod10_BootAnimation.jpg

There is a bunch of information about doing this already.  I'm just documenting what I steps I took to do this under Linux.

First, I got the Heimdall 64 bit binary.  This would not run, not sure why:

wskellenger@marquette ~/utils $ ./heimdall
bash: ./heimdall: No such file or directory

Even as root, it refused to do anything useful:

wskellenger@marquette ~/utils $ sudo ./heimdall

Okay, so I downloaded the 32 bit version.

wskellenger@marquette ~/utils $ ./heimdall
./heimdall: error while loading shared libraries: libusb-1.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I don't really understand this either, as I have libusb:

 wskellenger@marquette ~/utils $ sudo ldconfig -v | grep libusb
/sbin/ldconfig.real: Can't stat /lib/i686-linux-gnu: No such file or directory
/sbin/ldconfig.real: Can't stat /usr/lib/i686-linux-gnu: No such file or directory
/sbin/ldconfig.real: Path `/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu' given more than once
/sbin/ldconfig.real: Path `/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu' given more than once
    libusb-0.1.so.4 -> libusb-0.1.so.4.4.4
/sbin/ldconfig.real: Cannot stat /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libnss_db.so    libusb-0.1.so.4 -> libusb-0.1.so.4.4.4
: No such file or directory
    libusb-1.0.so.0 -> libusb-1.0.so.0.1.0
    libusb-0.1.so.4 -> libusb.so
/sbin/ldconfig.real: Cannot stat /usr/lib32/libnss_db.so: No such file or directory
    libusbmuxd.so.1 -> libusbmuxd.so.1.0.7

After some Googling around and coming up empty, I just decided to build heimdall from source.  This was easy enough.

cd ~/Projects
git clone https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/Heimdall.git
cd Heimdall
git checkout v1.4.1RC2

Now you should have all of the sources you need to build.  The following instructions are from the Heimdall README.

wskellenger@marquette ~/Projects/Heimdall $ cd libpit
wskellenger@marquette ~/Projects/Heimdall/libpit $ ./configure
wskellenger@marquette ~/Projects/Heimdall/libpit $ make
wskellenger@marquette ~/Projects/Heimdall/libpit $ cd ..
wskellenger@marquette ~/Projects/Heimdall $ cd heimdall
wskellenger@marquette ~/Projects/Heimdall/heimdall $ ./configure
wskellenger@marquette ~/Projects/Heimdall/heimdall $ make
wskellenger@marquette ~/Projects/Heimdall/heimdall $ sudo make install

You'll see this message after doing the install, do what it says:

 IMPORTANT - You must reboot your machine or execute the following as root:
service udev restart

If you want the frontend, also do:

wskellenger@marquette ~/Projects/Heimdall/heimdall-frontend $ qmake-qt4 heimdall-frontend.pro
wskellenger@marquette ~/Projects/Heimdall/heimdall-frontend $ make
wskellenger@marquette ~/Projects/Heimdall/heimdall-frontend $ sudo make install

That's it.  If you type 'heimdall' at a prompt now you should see some stuff on the screen.

Now, I took a brand new SGS3, and pressed HOME (the single button), Volume DOWN, and POWER at the same time.  You will feel a small buzz of the vibrator, and then see a screen about how this is dangerous and so forth.  Press volume UP to proceed.

At this point you'll see just our little green android guy and an indication that it is "Downloading...", but we haven't done anything yet.

Let's get the recovery installed first.  First I checked to see if anything from Samsung was connected.  Indeed there was:

 wskellenger@marquette ~/Projects/Heimdall/heimdall $ sudo lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 04e8:685d Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 2635:0601 
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0a5c:21d7 Broadcom Corp.
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0c45:6495 Microdia 

Now I just moved the clockworkmod image that I downloaded from here over to my utils directory.

wskellenger@marquette ~/utils $ mv ~/Downloads/recovery-clockwork-6.0.2.3-d2att.img .

I also renamed it to recovery.img, probably isn't necessary but I did so anyway:

wskellenger@marquette ~/utils $ mv recovery-clockwork-6.0.2.3-d2att.img recovery.img

Now let's try to flash it with Heimdall:

wskellenger@marquette ~/utils $ heimdall flash --recovery recovery.img --no-reboot
Heimdall v1.4 RC2

Copyright (c) 2010-2012, Benjamin Dobell, Glass Echidna
http://www.glassechidna.com.au/

This software is provided free of charge. Copying and redistribution is
encouraged.

If you appreciate this software and you would like to support future
development please consider donating:
http://www.glassechidna.com.au/donate/

Initialising connection...
Detecting device...
Claiming interface...
Attempt failed. Detaching driver...
Claiming interface again...
Setting up interface...

Checking if protocol is initialised...
Protocol is not initialised.

Initialising protocol...
Protocol initialisation successful.

Beginning session...

This device may take up to 2 minutes to respond.
Please be patient!

Session begun.

Downloading device's PIT file...
PIT file download successful.

Uploading RECOVERY
100%
RECOVERY upload successful

Ending session...
Releasing device interface...
Re-attaching kernel driver...

At this point I just tried to reboot the device into recovery to see if I had CWM installed or not.  I popped the battery out to get out of the previous download mode.  Maybe there is a better way to do this, not sure.  Now reboot into recovery.  Hold Volume UP, HOME, and POWER.  When you feel the small vibration, keep holding for a little while longer.  You will see the SGS3 logo and then hopefully boot into CWM recovery.

Once inside CWM, the first thing I'm going to do is a Nandroid backup of this baby.  Go to backup and recovery and select backup.  This will take a little while so be patient.  In the meantime I'll download CM10.

Edit 6-May-2013:  If you just want to root your device, and keep the stock Samsung ROM, at this point you can sideload the UPDATE-SuperSU-v1.xx.zip file available here.  After this, reboot, check to see if the SuperSU app is installed, and you're done.

Okay, back to installing CM 10.  I went with one of the 10.1 monthly release snapshots, available at http://get.cm.

Now that you've got the CM package and you've made a backup, we can sideload the CM10 .zip file onto the device.  First let's see if we can see the device or not:

wskellenger@marquette ~/utils $ adb devices
List of devices attached
3c1b4cf7    recovery

Pretty sweet.  Let's go to 'install zip  from sideload' in the Clockworkmod menu.  The screen should show:

Sideload started ...
Now send the package you want to apply
to the device with "adb sideload <filename>" ...

So, let's do that:

wskellenger@marquette ~/Downloads $ adb sideload cm-10.1-20130121-EXPERIMENTAL-d2att-M1.zip
sending: 'sideload'  100% 

After this you'll see the phone open and install the update automatically.  This is pretty sick.  We also need gapps so let's download and install that the same way.  I got gapps from goo.im.

Again, select "install zip from sideload", and adb sideload the gapps package:

wskellenger@marquette ~/Downloads $ adb sideload gapps-jb-20121212-signed.zip sending: 'sideload'  100% 

That's pretty much it folks.  I actually did a wipe data, wipe cache, wipe dalvik.  After that I feared that I perhaps undid the gapps installation so I installed gapps again after this.  Then I did "reboot system now" and unplugged the USB cable.

Booyah, I'm seeing the familiar CyanogenMod bootscreen.

ATV Riding in Indian River, MI, and GPS Tools

I've tried most of the GPS mapping solutions out there for Android, using my $45 Samsung phone (Craigslist find) as the test bed.  I was really hoping I could get an open source solution that would meet my needs.  The closest I found was called Aripuca.  It is almost exactly what I want, and I started playing around with the code, there is a lot of promise to this app.

The most advertising I saw was for Backcountry Navigator.  This app has good ratings on the Google Play store, but costs $10.  I figure this is not a bad price to pay if it is decent.  I tried the trial version and eventually bought the pro version.  I was quickly finding a lot of bugs with this app, such as my tracks drawing in the middle of a lake or a lot of flicker on the screen when the maps would redraw.

In between I'm not sure how many others I tried, but my favorite by far is a gem called OruxMaps.  If you're used to a Garmin eTrex, you will feel pretty close to home using this app.  It is EXTREMELY customizable and 'just works'.  Never had a FC, and almost always had expected behavior.  The only strange thing I found was at some point I had it navigating to a point, and I could not figure out how to 'cancel' the navigation, so it was always drawing a straight line from my position to the point it was trying to navigate me to.  Other than this annoyance it performed flawlessly.

So, here is our route in the Indian River area.  I used OruxMaps to record the route.  I shared it with myself by uploading it to my Google Drive account as a GPX file.  Once in drive I downloaded it to my laptop, where I tried to re upload it to Google Maps with very poor success.  I played with this for several hours, trying to modify the GPX file and get Maps to load the whole thing, but it would only display about half of the entire track.

I finally came across GPSVisualizer.com, a cool site that will let you upload your gpx file and visualize it in a number of different ways.  One of the ways you can save the file is to a site called EveryTrail.com, which is kind of like a blog site for your trips.  Here is the link it generated for our trip in Indian River:

Indian River CES Trip 2012 at EveryTrail

EveryTrail - Find hiking trails in California and beyond

Later I'll post about my Ram mount on the four wheeler and maybe some screenshots of OruxMaps in action.

Craigslist Pickin': Handheld Computer with Touchscreen, SD Storage, GPS, Wifi, and Bluetooth, $45.

How about this for a deal:  Used Samsung Admire, purchased used on Craigslist, that I plan to use as a standalone GPS on my ATV.

I rooted the device and removed all of the bloatware, and tested out an offline GPS app this morning, worked great.

Seriously, this is a lot of hardware for $45.  Entry level phones like this get kicked to the wayside, but they have a lot of life left in them!