Pokémon GO 0.69.1: My surprising return after one year!

Around one year ago I played Pokémon GO the last time - apparently in September my account was banned - and could not play again. And now it works again - with the same account!

It did not really play that much last year, mostly in Las Vegas and a bit in Germany - when I was in Japan I could not really test it. A shame. From my old phone back then I used a workaround by installing the apk file manually, since the download via PlayStore did not work, but at one point the latest version at the time - 0.39 - stopped me from logging in.

That was the reason I stayed away from the game and asked to reactivate my account. Nothing happened. After switching from the Samsung Galaxy S3 mini to an LG K5 in June I tried to log in again - still did not work...

Suddenly working again!

Today I gave it another shot: Downloaded the current version 0.69.1 via Google PlayStore, installed the game, agreed to login with my Google Account and suddenly I could see the loading screen seeing the Pokémon Tyranitar from the second generation Johto! And the game opened with my old account. I can still see the history!

After catching my first Pokémon after one year and collecting some items my history looks a bit weird (see above). I am not too much

aware what happened during that year. I know they added the second generation of Pokémon and extending the possibility to catch more different Pokémon and being able to actually have battles which seemed not so easily possible at the beginning.

Therefore for me it´s now rediscovering the game again and increasing my Pokédex. Let's see how it's going to turn out the next few days. I'm currently in Spain and I don't know if there are any rare Pokémon here. Anyway, I could already level up from 5 to 6 which is nothing, but not surprising since I haven't played a lot. 

Feel free to comment on your experiences and what happened during that year! I'm now outside checking out the area.. ;)

Exchange Email authentification failure through enabled FACE RECOGNITION

If you weren´t aware about that, it sounds quite confusing, but it´s really an applied security measure from MS Exchange Active Sync...

The case was the following: I received a call from a user having issues configuring his email account with his newly acquired Samsung Galaxy S8. 

He got the error message 'Authentification failed' as soon as the user tried logging in with his credentials. I checked at that moment, there was neither an account locking in Active Directory nor a counted failed attempt.

I guided the user to check in OWA (Outlook Web Access) the list with connected phones. The S8 was listed with 'Access denied' and that the device isn´t within the applied security standards.

Interesting. But initially no idea since I needed more information and unfortunately I could not see the phone directly as the user was miles away. 

A few minutes after the call the user messaged that the figured out the issue himself: He disabled the 'face recognition' of his Samsung phone and the error message no longer occurred. Also, the entry 'Access denied' in OWA was also gone.

Quite surprising if you face that issue for the first time. But on the other hand companies need to apply some sort of policies nowadays with the usage of BYOD...

4 Years with a Samsung Galaxy S3 mini

It´s sounds a bit crazy for the lifetime of a smartphone nowadays, but I had my Samsung Galaxy S3 mini for almost 4 years and I changed it now to another phone. A look back.

After 1,5 years with a Samsung Galaxy S Plus which was actually my first smartphone at all, a change was needed, because the display had some scratches already for quite some time and the contract was about to expire and so it made sense to change.

Since I had a phone contract, I selected one of the cheapest options possible, the Galaxy S3 mini for one extra euro. Back on this day in 2013 I did not expect that I would still have it in Mid-2017.

And for some reason over all the years it just got one little almost not visible scratch, but I dropped multiple times, at least on 50 occasions... I did not count, it´s just a random number. How often did it end up under the bed, on the streets with the outer cover and the battery forcefully removed from the phone. And that at the three different continents and multiple countries.

I even lost it a few times: Last year for example, while hiking north of San Diego on some hills with warnings signs of snakes I noticed that my phone was no longer in my pocket. On my own I decided to walk the entire path back checking every corner. At a moment I almost came to a point where I thought I went past, I found it: Half covered in sand, but still running and not damaged.

In the same month a few weeks before while traveling through Canada and the United States the Pokémon GO hype started. And I wanted to be part of it. Unfortunately my phone was not ready: Android version too old and no Android 5 officially available, but I stayed confident and updated the phone to a Cyanogenmod with Android Lollipop (as you can read here). But only until September, I was obviously banned, could not login anymore with my email address - it was not available in PlayStore anyway, I needed to install it manually as an apk file.

But this upgrade to Android 5 gave the phone a new life. It ran faster and having a new GUI let me initially felt like I got a new phone. But then I already noticed: It needs a bit more of battery. 

Financially it was also a nice solution: I let my phone contract expire and switched back to prepaid including a little basic mobile data flatrate. For just a few euros a months it was a quite attractive solution to keep that phone for a while.

But now anno 2017, it got slower and the storage was more and more on the limit since the WhatsApp database and other apps where taking more and more space. After moving the Spain at the beginning of the year the bank there offered me a LG K5 for free. That´s why I switched phones a few days ago, moved every data and application to the new phone.

And that´s why the story of my Galaxy S3 mini now ends after 3 years and 11 months, after travelling to many countries around the world, joined me to the highest point of Spain, the Teide, got lost a few times, but nobody wanted to steal it... 

It still works and I will keep it - just in case.

From a classic SIM to Micro SIM - and it worked!

After using a 'classic' SIM card for many years I reached a point where I had to switch to a phone which no longer supports big SIM cards. Here´s how it went...

With my old Samsung Galaxy S3 mini getting slower and the battery discharging quite quick the signs are clearly showing for a change to another phone. Which I got. From a bank. And even for free. It´s a LG K5 with two SIM slots. But more about that another time.

I was aware that it was possible to cut your SIM card to a smaller Micro SIM with a cutting template, but I never tried it before. Now, while being in Germany - in proximity to my service provider if anything goes wrong - I gave it a shot. 

I printed the template, cut the lines as suggested easily with a scissor. After the important cuts were done I switched to a nail file in order to make the card fit properly and getting the lines more accurately. Initially it did not work. Tried the file again and the card was in. I booted the LG phone and the PIN was requested! Great, it worked.

But for some reason mobile data did not really work, even after a few minutes. I mean the 'E' (edge) letter was seen at the top, so 'Data' was basically on. First I expected that may a part of the SIM got damaged. Or even the slot? I tried the second slot, issue the same. 
Refiled the SIM again a bit and put it back into the first one. Issue remained. But there was some data transferred, just a few MB, but opening Google and other sites ended in a timeout.

So what about the APN settings? They looked kinda old, so I checked for other settings for German T-Mobile:

Name: T-Mobile

APN: internet.t-mobile

User name: t-mobile

Password: tm

Changed the settings, rebooted. Waited a few minutes for changes to apply and then it worked. In hindsight, maybe the old settings would also have worked if I had waited a bit longer, but anyway:

The SIM card cut worked!

Repair damaged videos from your Android phone

I was recording a few videos recently and during the recording I could no longer press 'Stop'. Video wasn't saved properly and couldn't be played at all. But there was a *.tmp file left...

Using my old Galaxy S3 mini my recording ended up with having no more space on the internal SD card and that's why the video couldn't be finalized and the phone also started rebooting afterwards.

At first, I couldn't really see if there was a temporary file or not, but the phone indeed created a 'mp4.tmp' file. From that point on I was sure I could save the video...

Some research...

At first I tried putting the file into video editing software, but no chance! Using Internet search engines you'll find a lot of software with that feature. I tested an app in Google PlayStore called 'MP4Fix': You first chose the damaged file and then another undamaged video file in order that the app can take the video header from it to repair the corrupted mp4 file.

The process was successful and then the app offered the option to 'Play' the video. It worked, it had the actual length and also the sound was working. But now the downside: If you chose 'Save' you'll get the offer to upgrade the app to 'Premium' for 3.99€. Of course that's an option and an easy an quick solution, but for me it was rather a challenge to find a free solution.

Some Windows software were using the same 'freemium' model like a software called 'Remo'. Fixing and watchng within the software works, but no free way to save or export it. Through further researching I actually saw a few times the same good solution by 'cheating a bit' while using a demo version of another repairing tool...

A little workaround...

Here's how it goes: Google for 'Video Repair tool Grau' and you'll find a demo version of that useful piece of software. The thing is that you can save 50% of your video with the free demo version! And if you cheat a bit, you can even save 100% of your video by converting 50% of two copies of your damaged file. But let's put into an order:

1) Download the tool
2) Copy your damaged file into an 'easy-to-reach' folder
3) Rename it simple (it chose just 'V1.mp4')
4) Copy 'V1.mp4' and name it 'V2.mp4'. Now you have two files with the same size.

5) Open command ('cmd') as administrator and go the folder with these two video files
6) Use this command to merge the two files:

copy/b V1.mp4 +V2.mp4

7) V1.mp4 is now twice as big as before. 

8) Open the 'video repair tool'

9) Select the new 'V1.mp4' file and another reference video file from copied your phone. Click 'Scan' and the video will be created (because of the trick even in full length) in the 'repaired' folder as seen in the screenshot.

It's a quite simple workaround, but it works perfectly. My video was saved and I hope yours will be, too!

Old Galaxy S3 mini with CyanogenMod - Experience report

Five months ago I changed the OS of my three year old Samsung Galaxy S3 mini in order to be able to play Pokémon GO, here's a little experience report about CyanogenMod 12.1.

Generally it's running faster and better than with Android 4.1.2 which was the latest official version for the Samsung Galaxy S3 mini. 

This CyanogenMod is an Android 5.1.1 version and it really brought my phone 'back to life'. Although my primary plan was to be able to play Pokémon GO to be part of the summer hype.

By now, I even can't play Pokémon GO anymore, I was obviously banned for using an too old phone. Despite having Android 5 I couldn't download or update the app by a simple PlayStore download. No, I had to find the apk and install it manually.

Other important apps don't have a problem with that. You just have to be cautious, the total space of the phone is just 4.65 GB, so for too many bigger it could be an issue without an additional card. 

Another advantage from Android 5 is that you do not longer need to do a certain trick to get a language change done. For example you can change your phone system language to Japanese without an issue.

There's a funny bug, let's say every 1-2 months that you can't select WiFi anymore (see picture above). Do a reboot and it's back again.

Else there's nothing else worth to mention. Let's see how long it's going to run...

Cyanogenmod, S3 mini and Dropbox

The Dropbox camera upload is something truly convenient, but only if it works...

After installing the Cyanogenmod on my Samsung Galaxy S3 mini everything went well until I figured out that the file names from the automatic Dropbox upload were.... different. 

The names were actually like this:
1969-12-31 16.00.00-487
1969-12-31 16.00.00-488
1969-12-31 19.00.00
1969-12-31 19.00.00-1
1969-12-31 19.00.00-2
1969-12-31 19.00.00-3
1970-01-01 01.00.00
1970-01-01 01.00.00-1

Yeah, definitely not the current date. So I was hoping to find a fix as I found several other people in different forums having the same problem, but it didn't seem like there was any solution. It was even mentioned that there's no solution expected. Obviously there's an issue with the camera driver.

The thing also is that Dropbox changes the file name after the upload to the date taken from the EXIF information. And this EXIF data is wrong for some reason. Even if there's the correct date set within the file.

That's why some people had the idea to find a solution removing the Dropbox feature to change the file name for the upload, but that doesn't even seem possible.

My personal workaround solution

But despite the issue you have to live with it or find a way to make it simple. Of course you can sent everything via Bluetooth or connect the USB cable to copy the picture to your PC or cloud folder.

You can also use a script to change the names of the uploaded pictures in Dropbox afterwards. Or even find another cloud to upload your photos.

I kept it simple: MANUALLY! I made an extra Dropbox folder and I'm sending the photos manually from time to time to the Dropbox.

And if my phone gets lost, I still have the wrong named photos in my camera uploads. So, could be worse!

Change Android system language to Japanese WITHOUT rooting!

Usually it's quite easy to change the system language of your Android device to another one. But how can you proceed if the language you want isn't even listed?

In my case it was a Samsung Galaxy S3 mini with Android 4.1.2 and I wanted to change the OS language to Japanese, but unfortunately there was no option. There was Korean or Chinese, but no Japanese...

I read something about the app 'Language Enabler' (available in Google PlayStore), which is able to enable hidden languages within Samsung devices.

But as I read this app would only work with rooted Android phones - which I didn't have. Nevertheless I downloaded the app and started it.

After starting this app a warning message about this showed up. But: As you can see in the screenshot on the right, 'you can still apply a default language'.

And then I tried exactly just that. The list within Language Enabler luckily included also Japanese. For applying the default language there was a phone system restart necessary, but that didn't happen. So I confirmed the change to Japanese again.

It took like 20 seconds and the language was changed to Japanese without even restarting the phone! But to be sure I restarted my phone and after a reboot the system remained in Japanese.

And that's how it looks in Japanese

So it worked as it wasn't planned. I don't know if the same scenario would work with other devices, but you can may comment your experiences about that.

The next goal would be to understand the OS language. Good luck with that!