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Replacement for craptacular adb shell

Hey everybody. I'm on windows and adb's shell just keeps on pissing me off. Mainly, how pressing tab actually inserts a tab rather than tab completion . I'd really like to do something about this.
Here's a list of the things i've tried to get rid of this super-annoying behaviour.
-rolled a cross-compiler toolchain (glibc-based) for my phone (HTC Magic) and cross-compiled bash (in a vm). I actually made this work even with dynamic linking, and can start bash from within an instance of "adb shell". Unfortunatly, this doesn't change the tab behaviour, which appears to be baked into adb rather than a problem with the default shell.
-I thought i'd try something fancy by doing...
adb shell mkfifo /fifo
adb shell "bash > /fifo < fifo 2> /fifo"
adb forward tcp:9001 dev:/fifo
and starting putty in raw mode, connecting to localhost:9001. Unfortunatly, all is what happens is i get an echo of what i type and if i press enter a few times putty spits out ": command not found". I can't see why this shouldn't work but I suspect i'm Doing It Wrong.
-Searching the forum revealed puttycyg, which is actually really handy but unfortunatly suffers from the same tab completion problem as using adb shell in cmd.exe
How do you guys do it? Am I onto something with the adb forward thing? If so, how do I make that work?

I have also compiled bash but I have tab completion though adb. I do however use Linux as my desktop OS and am connecting through Konsole. So you could just try to install KDE for Windows. I know that I've looked for good terminal applications for windows but found none. They're all **** compared to what's available on nix.
This is my simple bashrc:
Code:
# If interactive do nothing.
[ -z "$PS1" ] && return
export HOME="/sdcard/"
PS1='[email protected]\h:\w\$ '
Also it's full of aliases for busybox. By replacing built in ls and similar you even get nice colors But still no line editing for some reason. I figure I might just need a proper libreadline or similar for that.

If anybody's interested in how I got this working, i cross-compiled socat for the droid. Required configuring with --disable-termios and manually editing config.h to set the #define for CRDLY_SHIFT and a couple other *_SHIFT macros to some values i found in Config/linux-2.6.24.h (or something similar, posting from memory here)
Once socat is on the phone, I made it pipe data from a bash shell to a unix socket it is listening on:
socat unix-listen:/dev/adbsock,fork exec:"/bin/bash -li",pty,stderr,setsid,sigint
(command shamelessly copied from http://superuser.com/questions/123790/socat-and-rich-terminals-with-ctrlc-ctrlz-ctrld-propagation ).
Then, on the pc i run adb forward tcp:9001 localfilesystem:/tmp/adbsock
And if i connect putty to localhost:9001 in raw mode (disabling line editing and local echo) I get a fairly complete bash shell that you can not only use tab completion on but even vi works
Again, posting from memory here so if anyone wants to try this and is running into problems i can dig it up from my ~/.bash_history.

Any chance you can post your socat port?
The tab completion thing is driving me insane! I don't understand why the ADB shell in *nix is proper, but the windows version sucks so much hairy donkey balls.
I've been using Ansicon so I at least get color in my shell, but ADB still mangles tab, and I don't even want to talk about what it does to Nano. Ugh!

Oh wow, this takes me back. I don't even have my android phone anymore (cancelled the contract due to terribly crap network service, and (unfortunately) the iPhone was the best phone in its price range from my new carrier).
So I don't have any files to give to you...
But, from what I can remember, to make it work, I built a cross binutils and gcc loosely following the instructions from the LFS book, compiled glibc + a few other libs socat wanted with it, and then socat itself, and then bash. I then copied the cross libc.so.6, ld-linux.so.2 (or whatever it's called on ARM) and all the libs socat wanted to /lib on the phone, and the socat and bash binaries to /bin. It's convenient that android keeps its important stuff in /system because it means you can avoid screwing around with your toolchain to make it look for a dynamic linker in some location other than /lib.
From memory socat was the only thing I had problems compiling, and thankfully I've already posted roughly what i had to do to it to make it build (because there's no way I remember lol)
Sorry I can't be more helpful!

Carrier IQ

So, looks like we have Carrier IQ on our phones, thanks to AT&T. Any luck on getting a 3rd party ROM on here yet? Any estimates as to when?

Can you give us more information? like how you found it on the phone, what steps did you take?
With more info, those of us in the know can figure out how to disable it, or remove it, without having to resort to waiting for a rom.
I have been looking for it for quite some time without much luck.

It's the device health app.it calls the ciq agent . Easily frozen.
Sent from my MB865

mtnlion said:
It's the device health app.it calls the ciq agent . Easily frozen.
Sent from my MB865
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I will see what else I can come up with for the ciq agent, maybe a way I can fake it out on the *NIX side of the house.

Yep first thing I went looking for after I got root.

Bloat freezer. It's free, finds it fast. When you freeze device health it doesn't want to close and keeps force closing, just reboot, it will be frozen and not running.

Douchewithaphone said:
Bloat freezer. It's free, finds it fast. When you freeze device health it doesn't want to close and keeps force closing, just reboot, it will be frozen and not running.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Must be rooted.
Sent from my mAtrix2!!

Well, I have found a way from the UNIX end to stop this thing in it's tracks, but it is not pretty for those unfamiliar with command line....
What we have to do is uncompress the kernel image in the boot.img remove the sys.DeviceHealth from the init.rc file there, then compress the kernel back up, all using cpio.... now to see if I can possibly make it work, and not brick any phones in the process, maybe I can throw a quick apk together next week.
I have tried the bloat freezer and the android assistant and I can still find the sys.DeviceHealth running on the UNIX side with the ps command, so this is a nasty one.
I will keep you guys posted, If I can find a better way.

Here is the link I saw, and how I figured out where sys.DeviceHealth is starting from.
For those interested ONLY. PLEASE do not try this yet, give me some more time to play with this in an emulator and see what I can come up with.
I am just sharing information at this time. BTW Zygote is the process that is calling the sys.DeviceHealth on the Atrix 2.
To see this Do the following from the terminal emulator app on your phone or though adb shell.
ps | grep -i Heal
ps | grep -i zygote
If you notice on the sys.DeviceHealth process that the second number is the same number as the first number of the zygote process.... What that means is that the zygote process starts the sys.DeviceHealth process. The first number is process ID (the processes "adress" so to speak), and the second number is the Parent process ID (The process that started the next one).
http://vinnysoft.blogspot.com/2009/12/zygote-system-process.html

jimbridgman said:
Here is the link I saw, and how I figured out where sys.DeviceHealth is starting from.
For those interested ONLY. PLEASE do not try this yet, give me some more time to play with this in an emulator and see what I can come up with.
I am just sharing information at this time. BTW Zygote is the process that is calling the sys.DeviceHealth on the Atrix 2.
To see this Do the following from the terminal emulator app on your phone or though adb shell.
ps | grep -i Heal
ps | grep -i zygote
If you notice on the sys.DeviceHealth process that the second number is the same number as the first number of the zygote process.... What that means is that the zygote process starts the sys.DeviceHealth process. The first number is process ID (the processes "adress" so to speak), and the second number is the Parent process ID (The process that started the next one).
http://vinnysoft.blogspot.com/2009/12/zygote-system-process.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
zygote appears to be a process respawner (watchdog) of some type. The trick is to find out where its config lies and tweak that to prevent the launching of sys.DeviceHealth.
I've just got the busybox installed that came with TiBackup and the shell tools are sorely limited (no grep for eg.). The shell itself is also pretty limited (no pipe??? WTF?). I had a version of bash on my atrix4g, and I'm wondering if you know of a reliable source for bash and shell tools for the atrix2?

A lil info on what AT&T says and how it uses Carrier IQ and some of the devices it is on can be read here http://m.androidcentral.com/atts-us...its-own-analytics-app-not-just-embedded-phone

razholio said:
zygote appears to be a process respawner (watchdog) of some type. The trick is to find out where its config lies and tweak that to prevent the launching of sys.DeviceHealth.
I've just got the busybox installed that came with TiBackup and the shell tools are sorely limited (no grep for eg.). The shell itself is also pretty limited (no pipe??? WTF?). I had a version of bash on my atrix4g, and I'm wondering if you know of a reliable source for bash and shell tools for the atrix2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes that is exactly what zygote is. You would disable the sys.DeviceHealth in the EXACT way it says in the in link I posted, but you have to uncompress the kernel image, and extract the init.rc in there, then edit it to not include the sys.DeviceHealth, then re-compress it with cpio. This is just for information right now, so that later on when the ROM developers get started, they can use this info for their ROMs. I am testing this using a couple Android emulators to see what I can do with this.
As for a reliable busybox, I like the version from JRummy16 in the market, go grab that an install the latest version of busybox from his installer you downloaded (I think it is 1.19.3 or something similar).
also go get the hackers keyboard in the market, it helps a lot if you EVER use the terminal app ON the phone, heck I like for text and typing as well.

Jim: I'm assuming you mean the initrd image and not the kernel, or is that all wrapped up into one in android? the initrd is an odd place for the system's watchdog config. I suppose putting it in the kernel image prevents disabling it because presumably we don't have the key to sign the new image...
that's a new version of busybox, but I'm more interested in one with all of the options compiled in. What I have is pretty bare-bones... Does his busybox have grep at least? what do you do for a decent shell?

razholio said:
Jim: I'm assuming you mean the initrd image and not the kernel, or is that all wrapped up into one in android? the initrd is an odd place for the system's watchdog config. I suppose putting it in the kernel image prevents disabling it because presumably we don't have the key to sign the new image...
that's a new version of busybox, but I'm more interested in one with all of the options compiled in. What I have is pretty bare-bones... Does his busybox have grep at least? what do you do for a decent shell?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes in the initrd image the kernel is packed in there, as well as the init.rc file on Android, as well the filesystem subset, etc.
The init.rc file in / on the phone is NOT the one the kernel itself executes, take a look at that link I posted, Here is the excerpt we are interested in, I am pretty sure that the sys.DeviceHealth is in the exact same place:
I want to get a bit more control of what things are starting up when. To do this I need to modify the init.rc file. To do this I first extracted the the ramdisk to the fileystem so that I can modify it (gnucpio -iz -F ramdisk.img).
After this I simply commented out the line from init.rc. Then we can recreate it: (gnucpio -i -t -F ../ramdisk.img | gnucpio -o -H newc -O ../rootfs.img).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes both the stericson and JRummy16 busybox have most every command in the busybox you really need, oh and they create links in /system/bin for you, so that you can run commands without needing to always type busybox in front of the command.
As far as shells, I am a bourne or korn guy, so I just use the default /system/bin/sh, since I am closely intimate with bourne, being the UNIX Engineer that I am, and handling anything at the lowest level of the OS still requires bourne. But I love to program in korn (ksh), but I have not found any android shells that are useable beyond the basics, since we really are not going to spend much time there, it does not matter much. I would get aquainted the bourne, that android uses, since android seems be using the old school UNIX style bourne, more and more, yes there is some bourne again in there too.
P.S. pipe is in the /system/bin/sh, just make sure you source the /osh/apath.sh file, to get the /system/bin and /system/xbin in the shell...
The hackers keyboard has things like the arrow keys so that you can command recall, and other helpful things.
If you really need to run something, from the shell, just make sure put sh in front of it, or it won't run in a shell, one of the oddities about Android.

I have tested the method I mentioned before, and uncompressing the ramdisk that holds the kernel, and removing the sys.DeviceHealth from the init,rc, and it does work, after packaging it back up with CPIO. I tested this on an older phone that does not have a locked bootloader.
I am afraid to test it on the Atrix 2 since we still do not have a true way to get back after a soft brick at that low level.
Given the fact that this was another style of phone, and an unlocked bootloader, and the fact that the process name is a little different, I am still confident we can do something similar for our phone.

If you follow the directions on my post, you'll find it much easier to disable the Carrier IQ.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...6#post20281786

mrpoet said:
If you follow the directions on my post, you'll find it much easier to disable the Carrier IQ.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...6#post20281786
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^^^^^^^^^^^Page not found^^^^^^^^^^^

kirkgbr said:
^^^^^^^^^^^Page not found^^^^^^^^^^^
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try this Link. I am not sure if it will do the job for us or not, because we don't have the same Apps installed as the Epic 4g that this original post was copied from.
Here is the thread, mrpoet created and pointed to:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1390874
Here is the original one, that he does link to in his references:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1373394
I am going to see if it works.
----Edit---
I just gave this a try and all the commands ran successfully, but sys.DeviceHealth is still running after following the above post.

JRW 28 said:
A lil info on what AT&T says and how it uses Carrier IQ and some of the devices it is on can be read here http://m.androidcentral.com/atts-us...its-own-analytics-app-not-just-embedded-phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just to let everyone know, the information contained in the link that JRW 28 posted, is an accurate statement from AT&T.
I have inside information that, that is BS. There are 100's of Terrabytes of Disk Storage just for this purpose.

They're a pack of bastards.

Enable ZRam Compile Error

Sorry for bugging everyone again, but I'm in the process of trying to make my kernel and I enabled zram (since it worked for my GTab 10.1). Haven't modified any of the zram code. However, I got this compile error
Code:
drivers/gud/built-in.o: In function `.LANCHOR0':
mcDrvModule.c:(.data+0x0): multiple definition of `devices'
drivers/staging/built-in.o:xvmalloc.c:(.bss+0x3c0b50): first defined here
/home/Daniel/GTab10.1Dev/arm-2012.03/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabi-ld: Warning: size of symbol `devices' changed from 4 in drivers/staging/built-in.o to 8 in drivers/gud/built-in.o
make[1]: *** [drivers/built-in.o] Error 1
make: *** [drivers] Error 2
Not exactly sure why this happens considering i haven't touched any of the gud drivers of staging/zram drivers at all.

Which device? Based on your sig (and which section you are posting in) I'd guess the i9300, but based on the error message (in particular "/home/Daniel/GTab10.1Dev/"), I'd guess your working on the gtab 10.1 kernel.
Perhaps a full set of steps to repeat? How did you go about enabling zram, stock kernel source or something else? Which toolchain?
Finally, do you understand the error? I won't criticize you if you don't, but it's pretty obvious (at least to me) what the error message is saying and how you should go about digging into it a bit deeper.
Take care
Gary

garyd9 said:
Which device? Based on your sig (and which section you are posting in) I'd guess the i9300, but based on the error message (in particular "/home/Daniel/GTab10.1Dev/"), I'd guess your working on the gtab 10.1 kernel.
Perhaps a full set of steps to repeat? How did you go about enabling zram, stock kernel source or something else? Which toolchain?
Finally, do you understand the error? I won't criticize you if you don't, but it's pretty obvious (at least to me) what the error message is saying and how you should go about digging into it a bit deeper.
Take care
Gary
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, I'm not working on the galaxy tab 10.1 kernel. It's just that all the stuff needed (tool chain, where I keep my modifications) are in that folder so I'm just sticking with it. The way I enabled zram was just to enable it in .config "CONFIG_ZRAM=1" which then asked me if I wanted to enable the "zram for android" feature which I said yes. The kernel souce I'm using is the CM10.1 smdk4412 source since I use cyanogenmod. I am using the code sourcey march 2012 tool chain.
I did attempt to find a fix to the problem based on what little bit I know. In both the zram driver or the "gud" driver I'm guessing the same variable or structure is defined twice but differently each time. I think this is analogous to being 2 people at once? I did a grep in file text search to see where either a variable or structure named "devices" would have been defined. In neither of those folders did I find "devices". Yes, admittedly I'm no top dog developer and make modifications I can for personal enjoyment and maybe publication if it seems worthy.
But yeah, I didn't find anywhere in the gud or zram drivers where "devices" is being named/defined as a variable or structure. If I did find it, wouldn't it be easier to make the one with the smaller definition size bigger since going the other way would cut off data while a bit of extra storage never hurt? That's when I was planning to go with.
I'm sorry if the fix is so obvious.

Sorry if my reply seemed confrontational... it wasn't intended that way...
I don't have the cm10 code handy on my phone (and won't be able to pull it and test compile for another day or so.)
However, can you try to rebuild the kernel after a "make clean" (or maybe a make target of mrproper even)? Also turn off ccache if you're using it. If that doesn't work, can you please post the kernel config so that someone else can drop it in and see if they get a similar result?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2

garyd9 said:
Sorry if my reply seemed confrontational... it wasn't intended that way...
I don't have the cm10 code handy on my phone (and won't be able to pull it and test compile for another day or so.)
However, can you try to rebuild the kernel after a "make clean" (or maybe a make target of mrproper even)? Also turn off ccache if you're using it. If that doesn't work, can you please post the kernel config so that someone else can drop it in and see if they get a similar result?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't take it as confrontational. I like to say it's better to admit your short comings than to fake what you're not. I did do a make clean before starting. I'll paste in the relevant .config changes tomorrow.

Search inside the code of zram_dev.c (drivers/staging/zram/zram_drv.c), now search the word: "num_devices";
It should appear something like;
Code:
if (!num_devices) {
pr_info("num_devices not specified. Using default: 1\n");
[B] num_devices = 1;[/B]
}
there should appear value of 4 or 8; If the value there is 8, change it to 4, and if its value is 4, change it to 8
I don't know sure, but maybe you could fix it like this, or searching with grep -r "devices" /kernel/drivers/gud (and staging), and changing it with those values mentioned above

[SCRIPT] Get an Email when Your Computer Finishes Compiling Your ROM

Tired of checking back on your computer to see if your ROM compile is done, only to find out it isn't?? Or even worse, tired of coming back 4 hours after you started your compile, only to find out the darn thing failed 10 min in because you misspelled one word??
I decided to write a simple script that will email you when the compile finishes, it will include the time it took to compile and the last six lines of the output log (so you can see if the error if it had one). I wanted this script to require little, so it uses Gmail as the smtp relay, so you don't need a email server running for this to work. I've been using it for a day now and it's very handy. I may add more features later, we'll see. It needs two dependencies, msmtp and ca-certificates. The install script will install them for you if running Debian or Ubuntu. Otherwise install them yourself and run it with the -reinstall option.
Here is the Readme.txt file contents:
DESCRIPTION:
This script has a simple purpose of alerting us when a ROM has finished
compiling. Hopefully to save us the trouble of checking back constantly
to see if it finished, or even worse, to come back to our computer after
4 hours of compiling only to find out it failed 10 min into the compile.
This script will shoot out an email when the compile finishes, including
the time it took to compile and the last 6 lines of the output log. It
uses Gmail's smtp servers, so there is no need to run a email server for
use. This does store your email password in plain text for the config file
located at /etc/msmtprc. Only root can view this, but if you are
worried, create a dummy Gmail account for this scripts use. I'll work
on a better solution later.
USE:
untar in a directory, cd to the directory and run the install program.
chmod 755 acompile-install.sh && ./acompile-install.sh
then goto your working repo directory, run
. build/envsetup.sh
lunch
acompile
and wait for your email ​DOWNLOADS:
It's so nice to have my phone beep at me and tell me my compile is finished. I mostly wrote this for myself and it works perfectly for me, so I thought someone else might find it useful. I hope you enjoy it.
-Mike
DOWNLOADS:
acompile

Hey thanks for this Mike. I have yet to run a build with this but should tonight I'll report back what I find.
Sent from my EVO

I will run this now. I hate those pesky errors.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using xda app-developers app

[TOOL] ApkSpy v1.8 - Resurrected (APK: view manifest on PC and/or Install APK via PC)

APKSPY - RESURRECTED​
First:
I want to thank @ido for the original application -- It was his idea (and his code I've hacked :cyclops and modified.
Second:
Since Ido seems not to be active anymore I'll re-publish the application here.
Unless for some reason Ido will specifically ask me to remove it.
The original post
ido said:
ApkSpy is a simple tool I hacked up tonight which allows you to easily view the manifest of an APK (screenshots attached - not up to date though) just by double clicking it. (It can even associate with the .apk filetype, yay!)
ApkSpy relies on the aapt.exe tool from the android SDK, so you must have that installed (or just copy aapt.exe from somewhere, that's the only file needed to run ApkSpy).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Third:
Requires Microsoft©® .Net Framework v4
(Kind of since I've done it some time ago and waited for Ido [the orignal developer] to respond and allow or disallow me to re-publish... So, I don't remember all the changes I've already done...)
v1.8.19 CHANGELOG:
Fixed some Date parsing function (zipped file with no time stamp) in ZipStorer (by @Jaime Olivares) maybe causing some of the error reported here...
v1.8 CHANGELOG:
Changed Icon - CONTRIBUTED BY @Jarmezrocks
Removed unneeded tabs (System, Batch Rename, Log)
Minimize / Maximized restored back
v1.7 CHANGELOG:
(Actually 4.1.7.870, but the first and the last parts are internally used :fingers-crossed:)
Try to automatically find adb.exe and aapt.exe in ApkSPY directory or in PATH variable: If failed finding any of the executables, the user is asked to manually locate them
(★ Currently the location is not saved... ★).
Check if the ADB server is running and Start or ask if to Restart ADB server
Tidy up the code
Refining the original libraries written by Ido related to ADB and AAPT
Some more minor code updates
Revised most of the "General" tab (other tabs ware not touched) of the UI:
Grouped and ordered controls on form
Added DropDown of devices attached (★ Not automatically updating upon plugging... ★)
Added some control over ADB actions
Added status bar that some other details are shown, e.g. device type (Nexus, I9100...), OS version (4.1.2, 4.4.2...) and OS build (KOT49H, KVT49L...)
Added (nice looking) information panel with clickable links (for actions on the form) and coloring
Other changes (I can't recall right now, since I've done it some time ago and waited for a response from Ido for permission to republish)
(★ Maybe I'll add an option for this later, depending on my -- not to much -- free time and requested by users .... ★)
Known bugs:
Sometimes ADB fails to return build.prop property for the status bar (however it has not caused any critical problem, so (I think) it can be safely ignored) -- haven't been able (yet) to find the exact state it is happening
Please take the time to look at the application ABOUT tab
Any Other ideas are welcome!
If you like it, Don't forget to Thank me
If you enjoy using this application as much as I have enjoyed re-writing it
please donate to show your appreciation​

RESERVED

Nice
Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

Good news
Bug report, every time I open this program, this dialog pops up, after click OK, this program works well.
PS, aapt.exe is in the same dir with ApkSpy

I got this errors:
1:
2:
Error in property: [email protected]@usrdata

cmlx said:
Good news
Bug report, every time I open this program, this dialog pops up, after click OK, this program works well.
PS, aapt.exe is in the same dir with ApkSpy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey dude,
I am not sure what you are doing wrong on your PC but it's certainly not the app as it works perfectly fine on my computer? Out of interest and for the sake or helping the new dev I thought I would raise a few points just to eliminate any finger pointing. There's a wishy-washy area when it comes to building/hacking things that were originally someone elses work...so yeah one can easily make great improvements yet open the door to bugs at the same time too. Anyway...thought I'd ask this:
Does aapt sit on your path? I know you said it is in the same directory, however just like a batch script in Windows it needs to "CD" or change directories to the %~dp0 if it is to understand what an executable is that happens to be sitting in the same directory as it's self. So this is is kinda directed at the new dev now. What I think is happening is that aapt is assumed to be in the system path when quite often it is not (i.e. those on XDA who have not yet played with the Android SDK properly). Put simply unless the application knows it is in the same directory as your executable it won't at all understand what aapt is. Does that make sense?
@dmagician , I would make sure that the apkspy app can do a check (even if it is a string search for the first few lines returned from aapt.exe), a simple if statement before throwing that error ....actually it would likely be an 'if not' statement. I don't have any of the code in front of me atm but I can help you out if you like? I was hacking this app myself sometime ago when ido first released it just using reshacker.
Note: If you are stuck and don't have source code you technically could write a full AutoIT wrapper for this app that could do all the checks and more and then bundle everything up into the one exe still. Check out the newer WinAPI stuff for AutoIT and in particular "Run binary" (yes that's correct you can just about run anything repackaged now and not need to deploy the original exe's or even libraries....they can all be stream fed to AutoIT @Compile time and need not be typically "installed" like you used to have to do. Anyway...I am waffling on shoot me a PM man.
@cmlx, to overcome your ApkSpy woes, and until dmagician can put his finger on what the cause is or what ido did when building it ages ago.....then you will firstly need to be patient (props to dmagician to figuring sh!t out so far) but till then where ever you have dumped the ApkSpy and aapt.exe on your system; just copy the address and put it on your system path. To do this 1) right click on My Computer or Computer if you are on Win 7 or 8. 2) Choose properties. 3) Advanced System settings and then at the bottom of tab you will see 'Environment Variables', click it and you will see some "User" and "System" options. Depending on your User access rights on the system you are running on (hopefully you are running as Admin surely?) then you can choose to edit your main system path or create a new variable in your user settings called 'path' Note User variables are always postfix to system variables but should always work anyhow.
Disclaimer: cmlx, if however you have already got an aapt.exe already existing on your system path but it is dodgy then you have to ensure that the good aapt.exe in your app directory is placed on path BEFORE the dodgy one....just sayin. Cause your system searches till it finds what it wants and then doesn't search anymore. Simple but can stuff people up quite often....and likely your case. Nowdays we tend to work from the known application location and not from a "Global environment path" when we know that there are going to be conflicts...and I can assure you that aapt is possibly the worst and most modified binary out there LOL. Hence this is also a note to the dev to ensure that ApkSpy reads from the current directory.....or like I am suggesting, wrap aapt up in the main application as well and that way there is no confusion EVER.
And I am done.....
Oh wait no I am not....sorry bug reports LOL :good: you thought I was all praise eh? Got another thing coming man
OK....so um the red boxes should explain everything. A picture says a thousand words (and yeah I needed at least 1 picture for this god damned long arsed post - sry). Um why in gods name would you remove the minimise and expand buttons? WTF? Anyway...it works but errrm yeah it doesn't wrap the text anymore? and it cuts the words off lol.
Other than that....I only really have one suggestion and it isn't even really a suggestion as I have kind of already made it so I can just give it to you if you want it? And that is that most people (well I can't say most as I am not speaking for everyone) tend not to like how apps take over their system. This isn't your fault at all in anyway as the first dev thought it was a good idea back then.....and back then hardly anything in Windows knew what a freakin apk was so it was a GOOD thing.....However now, every man and his dog wants to steel .apk extension for himself. I myself tend to be all over the shop with apks so I tend not to want to have any particular Windows app take it away from my control. I use WinZip as the main app for simple double click open as I want to see the contents of apks without needing to decompile them (great for theming) however I have apk shell extensions displaying the apks main icon to explorer, so if I set WinZip as default I get a nice lumping hunk of gold turd/box running rampet all over my Windoze bro ......so if you like I can show you my code that allows me to have default apps for specific tasks without interfering with anyones existing sh!t It looks neat too as you can right click any apk and just choose from a dropdown list what particular app you want at the time. If one has the need to use more apps then they need only put those apps in a list. There is nothing worse than double clicking an apk to find that Bluestacks or some other rubbish Windoze crApp has taken offf with your apk.
Lastly I thought I'd ask, Why no config file? Why store everything in memory? I know it's only small....but seeking for things everytime it is executed is a pain in the arse and not good practice. At the very least if you have no idea how to make an exe totally portable then you could reference a config file in the same directory....Or do as most do and write entries to the registry all neat and tucked away. If we get paranoid about "portable-ness" then we write to temporary space in the registry and make sure we clean up upon closing and/or inspect at runtime. simple!
I have plenty of AutoIT scripts that do exactly that too, so if you are stuck for ideas let me know. Anyway I have rambled enough, good luck and I will keep reporting bugs haha
Edit: That's waaaay too many emoticons. Oooops someone is a little high aren't they?
PS: I have attached my PNG of the icon I used for this bugger waaaaaay back....it's less generic and feel free to take it and abuse it and do as you please.

cmlx said:
Good news
Bug report, every time I open this program, this dialog pops up, after click OK, this program works well.
PS, aapt.exe is in the same dir with ApkSpy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I know of this one (and I've specifically wrote about it in the OP), it is NOT related to AAPT executable but to the way ADB is acting (sorry, out of my hands... :angel:
Explanation
The error comes from the application when trying to query the "ro.build.id" property via adb ('ADB shell getprop "ro.build.id" ') command.
I've came across this one but cannot determine the exact situation it is happening (as it can occur when first launching of the app, but after the app is loaded, clicking on refresh does not show this error)...
[ I've tried it on with the (only) two devices I own (1st dev. is stock (only the kernel is changed) 4.4.2 Nexus 4, 2nd dev. is S2-i9100 with customized RR ROM)and it seems to happen ONLY on the S2...]
It looks that in times, the getprop is being executed before the whole "build.prop" is being processed by ADB (This one I cannot control since it is happening on the ADB shell side [running on the device] -- unless MAYBE doing some [UGLY] delay after first initialization of ADB, which is, by far NOT best practice of process handling according to the literature)...

CyberianIce said:
I got this errors:
1:
2:
Error in property: [email protected]@usrdata
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which came first, the "SpkSpy spy stopped working" or the "Error in property" (if anyways related)?
Was it on the same run or two different runs?
As of the 1st one:
I do not have enough information from your post to check it up...
I'll post a new version which shows the exception details
As of the 2nd one:
Can you send me a copy of your /system/build.prop (so i'll be able to dig trough it and check it)?
It looks like my name-value splitter character exist as part of a given value in your build.prop .

Wooow, Long one! But it is nice to know people are using (trying) it!
Jarmezrocks said:
Hey dude,
I am not sure what you are doing wrong on your PC but it's certainly not the app as it works perfectly fine on my computer? Out of interest and for the sake or helping the new dev I thought I would raise a few points just to eliminate any finger pointing. There's a wishy-washy area when it comes to building/hacking things that were originally someone elses work...so yeah one can easily make great improvements yet open the door to bugs at the same time too. Anyway...thought I'd ask this:
Does aapt sit on your path? I know you said it is in the same directory, however just like a batch script in Windows it needs to "CD" or change directories to the %~dp0 if it is to understand what an executable is that happens to be sitting in the same directory as it's self. So this is is kinda directed at the new dev now. What I think is happening is that aapt is assumed to be in the system path when quite often it is not (i.e. those on XDA who have not yet played with the Android SDK properly). Put simply unless the application knows it is in the same directory as your executable it won't at all understand what aapt is. Does that make sense?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi
As I've replied to @clmx, This error is not related to AAPT (either executable [location or whatever] or results), but to the ADB command being used...
Jarmezrocks said:
@dmagician , I would make sure that the apkspy app can do a check (even if it is a string search for the first few lines returned from aapt.exe), a simple if statement before throwing that error ....actually it would likely be an 'if not' statement. I don't have any of the code in front of me atm but I can help you out if you like? I was hacking this app myself sometime ago when ido first released it just using reshacker.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry I did not understand... Check for what?
Jarmezrocks said:
Note: If you are stuck and don't have source code you technically could write a full AutoIT wrapper for this app that could do all the checks and more and then bundle everything up into the one exe still. Check out the newer WinAPI stuff for AutoIT and in particular "Run binary" (yes that's correct you can just about run anything repackaged now and not need to deploy the original exe's or even libraries....they can all be stream fed to AutoIT @Compile time and need not be typically "installed" like you used to have to do. Anyway...I am waffling on shoot me a PM man.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not need the Auto-IT to wrap these files (although I am using it for other automation in windows), as I can do it right in the C# code (on one of my early versions these files was embedded...)
BTW, I know there are some antiviruses out in the wild that do not like the embedded executables -- but it can be done -- and probably will save some time to anyone using this app...
If it will be required / asked, I'll embed the 4 binaries (AAPT.EXE, ADB.EXE, and two DLL's AdbWinApi.dll and AdbWinUsbApi.dll [I'm not sure both are required]) needed by the application.
Jarmezrocks said:
@cmlx, to overcome your ApkSpy woes, and until dmagician can put his finger on what the cause is or what ido did when building it ages ago.....then you will firstly need to be patient (props to dmagician to figuring sh!t out so far) but till then where ever you have dumped the ApkSpy and aapt.exe on your system; just copy the address and put it on your system path. To do this 1) right click on My Computer or Computer if you are on Win 7 or 8. 2) Choose properties. 3) Advanced System settings and then at the bottom of tab you will see 'Environment Variables', click it and you will see some "User" and "System" options. Depending on your User access rights on the system you are running on (hopefully you are running as Admin surely?) then you can choose to edit your main system path or create a new variable in your user settings called 'path' Note User variables are always postfix to system variables but should always work anyhow.
Disclaimer: cmlx, if however you have already got an aapt.exe already existing on your system path but it is dodgy then you have to ensure that the good aapt.exe in your app directory is placed on path BEFORE the dodgy one....just sayin. Cause your system searches till it finds what it wants and then doesn't search anymore. Simple but can stuff people up quite often....and likely your case. Nowdays we tend to work from the known application location and not from a "Global environment path" when we know that there are going to be conflicts...and I can assure you that aapt is possibly the worst and most modified binary out there LOL. Hence this is also a note to the dev to ensure that ApkSpy reads from the current directory.....or like I am suggesting, wrap aapt up in the main application as well and that way there is no confusion EVER.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The application IS searching for AAPT and ADB executables; The order is
Application directory (where ApkSpy.exe resides)
PATH environment variable
Jarmezrocks said:
OK....so um the red boxes should explain everything. A picture says a thousand words (and yeah I needed at least 1 picture for this god damned long arsed post - sry). Um why in gods name would you remove the minimise and expand buttons? WTF?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mostly I like it this way, otherwise - No specific reason...
It will be back in the next version...
Jarmezrocks said:
Anyway... it works but errrm yeah it doesn't wrap the text anymore? and it cuts the words off lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This Tab was NOT changed by me in any way... To be honest, I've thought of removing it completely -- But -- out of respect to Ido's work -- I've left it in.
I assume it is not wrapping due to Font size changed by me globally...
I'm seriously giving it second thoughts -- if it should stay at all (It was originally meant for batch rename of multiple APK's... I haven't used it even once...)...
I'm Really, REALLY, think of removing it completely (unless someone is / will be using it -- then I'll fix it all)...
Jarmezrocks said:
Other than that....I only really have one suggestion and it isn't even really a suggestion as I have kind of already made it so I can just give it to you if you want it? And that is that most people (well I can't say most as I am not speaking for everyone) tend not to like how apps take over their system. This isn't your fault at all in anyway as the first dev thought it was a good idea back then.....and back then hardly anything in Windows knew what a freakin apk was so it was a GOOD thing.....However now, every man and his dog wants to steel .apk extension for himself. I myself tend to be all over the shop with apks so I tend not to want to have any particular Windows app take it away from my control. I use WinZip as the main app for simple double click open as I want to see the contents of apks without needing to decompile them (great for theming) however I have apk shell extensions displaying the apks main icon to explorer, so if I set WinZip as default I get a nice lumping hunk of gold turd/box running rampet all over my Windoze bro ......so if you like I can show you my code that allows me to have default apps for specific tasks without interfering with anyones existing sh!t It looks neat too as you can right click any apk and just choose from a dropdown list what particular app you want at the time. If one has the need to use more apps then they need only put those apps in a list. There is nothing worse than double clicking an apk to find that Bluestacks or some other rubbish Windoze crApp has taken offf with your apk.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The application is NOT taking over anything, Unless you've clicked the asterisk ("*") button on the System Tab...
Was it registered for you without clicking this button?
If so, I'll recheck the code (may be it's some residue from the original code).
BTW
As the previous part of the answer I've wrote -- this one was left in as of respect to @ido's work...
2nd BTW
I'd like to see that explorer extension (and [preferable] the code of it - if you are willing to share it) you ware writing about...
Jarmezrocks said:
Lastly I thought I'd ask, Why no config file? Why store everything in memory? I know it's only small....but seeking for things everytime it is executed is a pain in the arse and not good practice. At the very least if you have no idea how to make an exe totally portable then you could reference a config file in the same directory....Or do as most do and write entries to the registry all neat and tucked away. If we get paranoid about "portable-ness" then we write to temporary space in the registry and make sure we clean up upon closing and/or inspect at runtime. simple!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, I've thought of it... But... I was thinking, that (at least) everyone is as geeky as me dauuh , and the most are setting the path correctly...
It'll be added in next version (I hope... TIME, TIME!!!! :cyclops...
Jarmezrocks said:
I have plenty of AutoIT scripts that do exactly that too, so if you are stuck for ideas let me know. Anyway I have rambled enough, good luck and I will keep reporting bugs haha
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I prefer writing my own code (sorry, I'm a developer in heart and soul...) then using automation like Auto-IT...
Jarmezrocks said:
Edit: That's waaaay too many emoticons. Oooops someone is a little high aren't they?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Jarmezrocks said:
PS: I have attached my PNG of the icon I used for this bugger waaaaaay back....it's less generic and feel free to take it and abuse it and do as you please.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
(@Jarmezrocks please see my PM to you.)
PHEW...
Long Answer, BUT HEY, I'm not the only one writing longies... :angel: (and i like referencing each and every part separately)...

dmagician said:
PHEW...
Long Answer, BUT HEY, I'm not the only one writing longies... :angel: (and i like referencing each and every part separately)...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahh yes. I write long messages sometimes when my medication has kicked in and I am high....not my fault I kinda need to get all the info out of my head in one go while I am awake.....or else there would just be zeds on the response zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz lol :laugh: (ref narcolepsy).
I commend you on your efforts at responding to such gibberish and making good sense of it! :highfive:
I have responded to your PM accordingly, and hopefully covered all you need? I have attached all info and sources etc.....well most of it...actually a fair bit of it you will have to workout your self but that is part the fun. Shoot me any questions if you need to...although I have a feeling that you will have mostly all of it covered as you are streets ahead of my knowledge already. I may have misjudged a little in my previous post (although hopefully not to make you feel any less than you actually are? please excuse me if I had said anything that may offended - being naive or what ever....you ARE definitely on the right track). As for the middle menu....I think you could easily remove it and not offend the original dev. It wasn't being used as you mention...and I think it could make way for more/better functionality don't you think? (discuss). However I would ensure all the things I mentioned in my PM first before going too deep and releasing on here.
Good move on bringing the buttons back. They were functional. But I DO like the single button close GUI myself on just about everything else....It looks clean. We have similar taste in that regard. It just isn't functional for me to pressing the task notification desktop link everytime I want to minimise the app LOL.
The rest I we can discuss via PM, this is pretty much only posted here as an open area for other forum members to provide input and opinion (or complaint....like how often it usually is, eh?).

CyberianIce said:
I got this errors:
1:
2:
Error in property: [email protected]@usrdata
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd got the same error!
For me it helped to copy two files to the install dir
"adb.exe" and "AdbWinApi.dll"
Both are installed with the well known MyPhoneExplorer into "Program Files\MyPhoneExplorer\DLL"
Hope it helps!

Feature Request
I use this tool for testing new APK builds on a project I am working on it. It allows me to quickly verify the version number and push to the device. However, since I am usually installing another version of an existing installed APK, I must manually uninstall before using APKSPY. Would it be possible to add a check box that would uninstall any previous versions? It would be really helpful.
Nevermind - I didn't fully read the message presented when it fail. It say uninstall/update and it allows the installation. HOWEVER, that brings up a question... Does it uninstall or does it update? There is a difference as you know.
Thanks,
Jonathan

Hi, I try to run this on Mac via Wineskin Winery, but no luck. Do I need something like .Net, or something else to run ApkSpy?
Thank you.

Ja_som said:
Hi, I try to run this on Mac via Wineskin Winery, but no luck. Do I need something like .Net, or something else to run ApkSpy?
Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only requirement is the Microsoft .Net 4.
(I'll add this to OP)

jmo said:
I use this tool for testing new APK builds on a project I am working on it. It allows me to quickly verify the version number and push to the device. However, since I am usually installing another version of an existing installed APK, I must manually uninstall before using APKSPY. Would it be possible to add a check box that would uninstall any previous versions? It would be really helpful.
Nevermind - I didn't fully read the message presented when it fail. It say uninstall/update and it allows the installation. HOWEVER, that brings up a question... Does it uninstall or does it update? There is a difference as you know.
Thanks,
Jonathan
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I know there is difference between the two (update vs uninstall and install again).
It is updating the application (like using "adb install -r apk_file_name.apk"), not doing remove and install

Removed unneeded tabs (System, Batch Rename, Log)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The unneeded Batch Rename tab was the only tab I needed really. :laugh: Luckily I found Ido's original version. It's ideal for renaming all those apk's I downloaded and still have the package name when I back them up to my PC.
I have an Asus Memo Pad 10 and an Asus Memo Pad 7 and neither are recognised by APKSpy. Not that it's a problem as I have no problem copying to and from them with Windows Exploder or Total Commander.
Other than that, it's been a handy little app for this tablet/smartphone virgin newbie.
Martin.

wolrik said:
The unneeded Batch Rename tab was the only tab I needed really. :laugh: Luckily I found Ido's original version. It's ideal for renaming all those apk's I downloaded and still have the package name when I back them up to my PC.
I have an Asus Memo Pad 10 and an Asus Memo Pad 7 and neither are recognised by APKSpy. Not that it's a problem as I have no problem copying to and from them with Windows Exploder or Total Commander.
Other than that, it's been a handy little app for this tablet/smartphone virgin newbie.
Martin.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello.
1st:
I can -- if requested - re-add the Batch rename.
2nd:
I don't know why these two devices are not being recognized -- unless not being recognized by ADB itself -- since I'm spawning devices by parsing the resulting text of "ADB devices" command, So unless being unrecognized by ADB, there should be NO PROBLEM detecting ANY android device with ADB on...
if you have any exception messages thrown by the application, please post them here.

dmagician said:
Hello.
1st:
I can -- if requested - re-add the Batch rename.
2nd:
I don't know why these two devices are not being recognized -- unless not being recognized by ADB itself -- since I'm spawning devices by parsing the resulting text of "ADB devices" command, So unless being unrecognized by ADB, there should be NO PROBLEM detecting ANY android device with ADB on...
if you have any exception messages thrown by the application, please post them here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No need to re-add the tab just for me, but thanks for the offer. As I get to know my way around Android I'll probably need such things less and less.
Sorry, but I know nothing about ADB other than APKSpy needing it. As you can see from the attached pic, the Asus is recognised by Total Commander
Martin.

Hi dmagician,
Nice work, and a shout-out to Ido who originally created it.
I have a feature request:
Could you add the option to remove certain permission(s) and save the modified APK file?
There are many apps which I feel allow themselves way too much permissions, and this option could be very useful to tame them apps.
One more thing:
I noticed that APKSpy v1.8.2 doesn't work with the latest version of AAPT.exe (1432KB), from the Android SDK r24.
So I had to use a previous version of AAPT.exe (833KB), which worked.
Thanks,
Eric

Hey does anybody know where the name of the apk is in the XML files inside the apk?