I just don't have the record button at all! I've tried phone, tablet, laptop none show an option, not even greyed out. I just tried googling for 30 minutes and I couldn't find the settings bits suggested to me!

Sorry for being useless but I'm old and neurodiverse so this really ain't easy

I found my old iphone 3g, and want to use it as an mp3 player for my niece. However, I can't, for the life of me, remember the pin I set for the restrictions, and I can't reset it without that. Is there any way to reset it without that pin? I already got everything I wanted to keep off of it, so I'm fine if everything gets deleted. Like I said, I want to give it to be niece as an mp3 player, but want it reset first.

I have a desktop computer (running windows) and a chromebook (running xubuntu), and I'm looking to do this so I can use the desktop's processing power to play games in bed

P.S. Some latency is fine, most games I want to play aren't real-time anyways

this appears to be the video, I have no clue why this is happening

Two days ago, my SSD stopped showing up on my computer (it doesn't show up in file explorer, disk mgt., device mgt., bios). There was little warning of drive failure; i was downloading a new game to it that morning (had to restart a failed download twice, but the third time succeeded). It's been humming along without issue for a couple of years now. There are some personal projects, photos, maybe game saves i'd like to retrieve if possible. Any ideas or tips would be helpful?

So far i've tried:

• restarting
• scanning with device mgr, disk mgr, in the bios
• power cycling the drive with the sata unplugged
• switching the sata cable to another port (no show)
• switching out the drive for a blank drive(no show as well)

next steps are to try cloning the drive with a 2 bay docking station

spec info:

• drive: 1 TB western digital SA510, working as the secondary drive.
• OS: Windows 10

Edit: thanks for the advice. It looks like this is out of my range of abilities to recover so I'm looking to a professional service now. Let me know of a good data recovery service in the greater Vancouver area of you know of one.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/30417070

I've been scratching my head with this one for close to a year now.

About a year ago my OnePlus Nord CE3 (Android 14, now Android 15) suddenly stopped recognizing the mic on any Bluetooth devices -- even when a device is connected, it stubbornly uses the mic on the phone itself, never the one on the device.

I've tried this with two pairs of TWS earphones and a Bluetooth speaker, all running either Bluetooth v5.2 or v5.3. All three of these devices work perfectly when connected to my Windows laptop.

Help? This used to work, I can't for the life of me figure why it stopped.

Hey yalls, want to share a little problem I experienced on my Fujitsu laptop on here, and possibly get some help or advice on how to deal with it.

I've searched the internet on these sympthoms but alas, not much had I found regarding this particular behavior. In a last attempt, gonna post here and see if one knows something/experienced it, after almost a year of it laying under my bed, dusting and all.

Soo.. Here's the fun story.

One day, I've decided to invite my friend over to install Arch by the wiki manual, mainly just for giggles but also to expose him to the Linux world a bit.

Not to say that I'm all experienced in computers, a noob myself, but have managed to get Arch installed on my now main laptop before, and haven't experienced such a weird thing I'm boutta tell.

But alright, back on track..Well, to install Arch and not risk breaking your main setup, you need something spare to install it on. And it was oh so convenient, that I had this laptop just laying around, used mainly just to share our laser printer with our home network and an occasional run of a Minecraft server if I felt like it (im changed now luanti ftw), running Fedora Server.

It is a Fujitsu Lifebook S752 with an i5-3320M and 8 gigs of RAM. Not great, not terrible, one could still use it fine for some simple computer stuff, or again, as a server. It's got UEFI too, to clarify. Even a TPM chip one can swap out too.

Well, off we got. Disk swapped, Live USB booted, manual opened, network.. Set up eventually. We got to set the basics up, partitioned the drive in a basic way, pacstrapped and, i think, chrooted eventually. All seemed fine, and we got to installing the bootloader. We decided to install systemd-boot because why not, so followed a wiki page on it. There, my memory is a bit bad in what EXACTLY was done, but after seemingly installing it we tried to reboot, but apparently did not set the bootloader correctly, as it only had a reboot to firmware setup option. No matter, I thought, spin the live OS up again and figure it out. But, after we rebooted to boot from our USB again, we saw that.. The boot menu, once populated with, I reckon, a few more default options such as a network boot or a CD boot, was.. Empty, containing only one boot entry.

(picture of the uefi setup not the boot menu)

Linux Boot Manager

And only that. And no matter if we stuck a Ventoy USB again, tried different ports, and even disconnected all the storage mediums completely and reconnected them back, even plugged in a drive with an installed OS, going as far as installing a new OS with systemd-boot on the same drive in hopes it'll pick up (i no longer remember if the originally installed one was working the second time). It was still there, and all it gave was either a "Boot device not found" or just a flash of black on selecting it, returning back to the same boot menu after.

Hard drives were recognized by the UEFI, DVD reader, albeit not the original one, spun up and tried to read something, but no action could update the boot entry list, and no OS could be booted from any media now, it seemed. Even ripping out the RTC battery did not help to clear or reinit it somehow, resetting to defaults neither.

Looked on the internet, someone was writing about getting on an EFI shell and the possible roads from there. Skimming through the Setup, found no clues on how to get on it, if there was a built-in one anyways. Well, saw it's possible to get it by downloading it on a flashdrive and booting from it, but have I mentioned, that an option to boot from a USB is absent, together with network boot? Yep.

So all that seems to be in my paws are options to enter the UEFI setup, a diagnostic screen, a normie friend who only saw Linux in the moments where it seemed to be comically convoluted to even get the basics done, and no real course of action.

So.. I would appreciate some input on this all. Where to look, what could be done and such. If needed, I can provide some details on what I have right now and cooperate, send further pictures.. Anything will help i guess.

Thanks for the time spent, in advance.

I swear to God I just replaced this laptop screen last year and it ran me a pretty penny. Admittedly I had this in a not too protected position in my car today and when I opened it up I noticed these two whiteish spots

I would like to add terminal sounds to my computer. Think the sounds on terminals in Fallout or Starfield. Has anybody already attempted the project and how did they achieve success?

My partner keeps the Bluetooth antenna of her Android Pixel 4a (5G) on because she wears a Fitbit. On the occasion I want to use Bluetooth (e.g. in my car or via portable speaker), devices will ALWAYS connect to her phone over mine if she's anywhere nearby. Sometimes it even steals the connection when I was already connected.

Why is this? Is there some way to steal the connection back?

It happened when I had a Pixel 4a (non-5G) and with a Pixel 8a. It's especially maddening when it's the audio stream in my car. I believe I've tried unpairing both phones, pairing mine first and then hers, and hers still ends up taking priority.

EDIT: Tech Support answers only, please. If I wanted to get trolled there are plenty of other places for that.

I've occasionally tried installing various apps that get blocked by the Windows 10 firewall, and I can't create a rule to allow the install because it is coming from a temp folder, the name of which changes on every attempt, and I don't see a way to whitelist the entire C:\Windows\Temp or C:\Users\eins\appdata\local\temp.

Installing Bluestacks for example, the firewall log shows the install file existing in \device\harddiskvolume4\users\eins\appdata\local\temp\7zs84d5994e\bluestacksinstaller.exe while others are in C:\Windows\Temp

• initiate install from C drive or from SD card, using Run as Admin
• I don't have access to the router, or any separate device I can use to block unwanted traffic
• Windows 10
• I typically use Malwarebytes Windows Firewall Control, but I can't get anything through the built-in interface either
• can't install Linux until I get a backup PC, because this one is all I have
• bought this laptop with 4 GB ram in 2015, I can't get it to do anything with Hyper-V

thanks

Hello, I'm encountering a startup error that prevents me from launching the game. Each time I try to start it, I receive a message saying: "Please close the ACE-BASE application before starting the game."

I have no idea what ACE-BASE is or why it's interfering. I checked Task Manager and tried closing background applications, but nothing helped. I've also followed every potential fix I could find on Reddit, YouTube, and other online forums—but the issue still persists.

This has become very frustrating. I just want to play the game I paid for without unnecessary technical barriers. Please provide a proper solution or release a patch that resolves this conflict. It’s unreasonable for a background or unknown application to block access like this.

So, i bought an airpods 3 almost two years ago. I was pretty happy with them right up until the warranty was about to expire, when half of the earbuds stopped reliably charging in the case. I brought it into the apple shop, and eventually they exchanged the whole thing, case and airpods. Now, after around half a year later, the issue happened to me twice in a few days. Am i just unlucky, or does the airpods have some fairly significant design fault?

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for a second hand phone (Budget around $400aud, ~ 1kMYR or ~$260usd)

My dream phone has:

• Dual Sim (preferably at least one esim)
• USB C with OTG (preferably at least usb3)
  • 2 usbC ports would be extra nice to have (allow me to dream)
• 3.5mm headphone jack (preferably 24-bit/192kHz)
• microSDXC slot (preferably dedicated)
  • if not dedicated then one where sticking the Sim chip to the SD card hack works
• decent custom rom and with it android 15 support!!
• at least 8GB RAM
• not a potato for a camera
• battery life to last bored geeks day
  • at least a work day of music and some comics and some brain rot on the socials and when I get home I got 20% left

Nice to have would be:

• ok Selfie camera
• fully charged in a hour
• 5G
• wifi 6
• a decent GPS chip

Phones I'm currently kinda looking at:

1. Sony Xperia 1 IV
   • insufficient custom Rom support, 2 guys are working on a linage port
2. Sony Xperia 1 iii / current favourite
   • ok custom rom support, bit old, unsure about camera quality
3. Poco x5 pro (5G)
4. Samsung A72

I'm a big fan of OnePlus, had the 1 and 7 but hate the trend towards no headphone jack and no SDcard support and then not even a second USB port

I used LinageOS a while back and quite liked it ... On my last phone I used YAAP and loved it

Cheers for reading ... PLS drop your 2 cents below

One of our Win PCs got infected with that thing. It creates a VB script in appdata, and when it runs, every USB drive you put in it gets everything on it hidden - but a new shortcut with a name of a drive, that actually points at a script leading to a new infection. Updated Win just blocks it, but this one PC was on 1709, nuff said.

Itsohappens we had a thing to present via this PC, and quick, and at that time no one told me about the virus. We tried 4 different clickers one by one (2 A4 Tech, one generic, one Logi) and first three of them stopped working after that. They are all with fresh batteries, their BT adapters weren't recognized as USB drives I assume. What could go wrong?

I don't believe this VB script could by any chance move critical information on BT adapters like it did with USB drives, right? Even if there's a little flash drive with software, it should be set as RO by default. But I don't see any other explanation to that.

I don't have access to any of these three at the time, but I'm curious where should I begin to inspect this problem? How can I, probably, see the 'contents' of such an adapter, see coming inputs and outputs, maybe watch it initiating a searching routine, etc? I also have a couple of universal BT adapters that I bought for my gamepads, is there any use for them here, or are these toys strongly paired device-to-adapter?

Now, thinking about it, I am not sure if I tried them on my Arch (btw!) so, somehow, maybe it's only reproduceable under Win (with Logi clicker and Logitech bluetooth m+kb still working on that infected machine?)? Again, would like to hear, if there's something I can look for.

Bonus points for advices I can try on Linux, since Lemmy landed me there, and if I'd ever need to look deep into various devices again, better to learn it on a system that I'd use in the future, so I won't need to relearn it.

Hello, the issue I'm facing is that Windows keeps lowering my microphone volume even though I'm speaking at a normal level. I'm not shouting or speaking loudly—sometimes I'm just whispering—and yet Windows still reduces my volume automatically. Because of this, I can’t use my microphone, which I paid hundreds of dollars for, at its full potential. I’ve tried every suggested solution from YouTube, Reddit, and other forums, but nothing has worked. I believe this is caused by a faulty piece of code, and it urgently needs to be fixed. This problem has existed for years—it was present in Windows 10 and unfortunately still persists in Windows 11. We shouldn't have to endure this frustrating issue any longer.

Any possible fix for this? It feels like my video quality is incredibly shite and grainy, even in bright light conditions and after cleaning the camera

Recently my laptop died. Thankfully, the issue wasn't the SSD. So I bought an external enclosure, took the SSD out of the laptop, and popped it into the external enclosure. I was hoping at that point, it would "just work".

I was hoping that when I plug it into my steam deck in desktop mode, it would recognise it and I could get some files off of it. Well, just one file really, my Sims 4 save. But it isn't recognised at all.

Is there anything I can do to get the save file off of the SSD? I can borrow someone else's (windows) laptop if necessary, though it didn't recognise it last time I plugged it in there either.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

I have an SSD bay (left), an ARM computer (Center) and a plug board (right). They’re wired together as well as to the router above. The problem is that it’s hard to clean the floor.

Is there a way to improve the setup so it’s less obtrusive? Every time we move the stuff to clean the floor the server goes down and needs a reboot. It’s such a pain.

Edit: thanks for the suggestions everyone. I'm going to swap the plug board for a double adapter. That way, they can be plugged in behind the locker leaving one less thing to deal with.

I'll either put the remaining stuff on the locker or else get a raised platform / stool for underneath.

I enjoy playing modded games on PC. My IT competency is all informal and hands on so I apologize if this is a dumb question or it seems like I have no idea what I'm talking about. What I was looking to do without using a 3rd party software was to have a game playing in any type of windowed, borderless windowed, or full screen display window on monitor 1 while also having the ability to navigate an open browser window or even just navigate my desktop on display 2. This is all a very normal set up I know but the brick wall I hit happens because my ability with a keyboard is a huge gaming retardant for me. So what I wanted to try and set up was for the gamepad and gaming window, regardless of what display monitor it's being used on, to remain as an "up front" and active process while being able to use my keyboard and mouse as their normal operating devices to navigate my dektop or other active program windows simultaneously.

I have only looked into this briefly because it was very evident after searching the internet that there was not a way to natively set up my PC to allow me to game on one monitor using a gamepad while also having the ability to freely navigating other open windows on monitor 2 using mouse and keyboard with the gaming window remaining active.

I'm playing Witcher 3 currently but earlier this year on the same PC and Windows 11 setup, I swear I was able set up Fallout London by editing the setting.ini file to do exactly what I describred no problem. Admittedly I'm usually as baked as an apple pie when playing with games or modding, but I flipping swear by editing the fallout ini it allowed me to set the the window as always on top and active (meaning it didn't move to the background, or pause, or cut the gamepad off when the mouse was used on other dosplay). It was a series of of like 3 lines of true/false display parameters I entered that allowed me to choose how the program would respond when my input switched from the program window's gamepad to the PC window's mouse/keyboard input.

Fast forward to me trying to get the same setup for a modded Witcher 3 and the results of my searching was that it is universally accepted technical impossibility to use a gamepad exclusively in 1 open window program while also using a mouse to navigate a PC's desktop or other app's open windows simultaneously.

My questions are all to ubderstand why this would be so difficult to implement as a standard option you can set in your OS settings? I'm certainly not qualified to actually be questioning this but in my limited understanding of the devices and platforms in play, this really seems like a very do-able and sought after feature.

Pc's with touch screens are basically doing everything I would like to happen but using touch screen inputs and parameters instead of a gamepad's input. What am i missing in this workflow that is brickwalling this from being an actual feature?:

1. Creating an OS native setting where the user can choose how the OS handles active and sleeping windows. For example, option A is to keep the default function of determining active windows based on actual cursor location. No clue how it's programed but basically keeping things as they currently are where the hover over an open window without clicking in it but still be able to scroll with mouse wheel. Then option B would allow you disable the function where inactive windows are relegated to only running background processes.

2. The setting would then require a subsequent setting option to pop up for the user set when the step 1 selection was set to have multiple open windows running simultaneously as seperate active windows. This setting would be for the user to choose between utilizing one input device to control the PC globally as normal or to be able to assigned an installed device to only perform within the limits of an assigned program's window when it is open and active.

Basically I'm picturing this working similar to the way a touchscreen laptop allows you to choose between standard desktop mode and tablet mode. Having the actual keyboard and mouse with global permissions as they always had so they will over ride the controller in its assigned program window for troubleshooting, saftey net in case input device 2 (gamepad or w/e) fails mid use. And the 2ndary input device is only able to operate in the confines of the assigned program window.

It also seems like I have messed around with software or device settings in the past that are already doing this for shit like Android Auto, augmented note pads and their stylus, the already mentioned touch screen displays, and I'm guessing but I wanna say some of the more accommodating accessibility options available for different types of handicapable input devices. I mean shit, don't they have to make all computers capable of being used with only a keyboard or only a mouse option already?

I'm fully expecting the answer to be that Windows and Microsoft are too far in the mindset of fuck what users want to include a feature that will require any added operating/programming costs. But like I started, I know that I don't know enough to know if there are major obstacles engineering this to work.

The chromecast I've got is about 10 years old and a few things don't cast on it no more. I'm guessing I need a new one, but is there another option?

I have a Pixel 8a, which is certified qi1, and 2 devices that can wirelessly charge it, a baseus battery pack and an ESR phone holder, they're both certified qi2 (which is backwards compatible with qi1), yet when I charge with them I can at most reach ~2.2W charging instead of the 7.5W advertised maximum for my Pixel 8a.
I don't understand why that is and if I can even theoretically reach the maximum supported charging power.
If so, how would I test my devices to figure out what their real thresholds are or if there are incompatibilities somewhere?

I took this Chromebook touch display off of a broken Chromebook.

It’s a SHARP LQ123P1JX33/A01 .

I’ve determined that I would need an eDP 40-pin to mini-DisplayPort adapter for output to the LCD screen, but I’m having trouble finding information for what I would need (if I need anything) for this connection? I assume this is the part of the display that handles the touchscreen. Is it possible to adapt this for external use, or is it not worth the hassle?

I got a new AIO cooler and needed to also move to a bigger desktop case.

So I moved all of my internal components from one case to the other and also removed the old AIO and installed the new one. Besides that, I might have damaged my PSU in the process so I had to replace that too. It wouldn’t turn on anymore so I just replaced it this morning.

I tried booting into Windows and it went to a BSOD saying cache_manager was the problem.

I tried to get a recovery in there and Windows tried to automatically repair drives but kept coming up on this same error.

I created a KDE Neon live USB and booted into that. Zero issues. I then manually formatted my Windows OS disk in KDE and also removed the Windows bootloader. Basically trying to start from a scratch system with no Microsoft any.

Still getting the BSOD, even with the Windows 11 USB installer I created from their creation tool. I am able to get to that purple screen in the installer and see a cursor to move around with my mouse. That’s the part in the Windows installer where you tell it what edition and which drive you want to choose. But after a few moments, it errors out to a BSOD.

Now I’ve actually went ahead and installed KDE Neon to my system. I use it on my laptop, but I need Windows on this computer for work (it’s my personal computer I game with but also use for remoting in for work).

I’m going to try redoing my USB as a new Windows 11 installer and see if that goes through, but wondering if there’s anything else I can do for this? Anything else to try?

Hi,

I have a Western digital 'WD My Passport' external usb harddisk and it has become defective in some way.

When I connect it to windows I've managed to get access to it before, but it was really sluggush to navigate in and it would fail to open certain folders and files. Now I cannot get windows to recognize it al all. It powers on and windows says something like 'setting up deveice', but nothing more happens.

If I open windows 'disk management' the drive shows up as 'Disk 1', 'Unknown', 'Not initialized'.

I wes reccomended a tool called Recuva (https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva), but since windows doesn't recognize the disk I cannot tell the tool where to look for files to recover.

I've also tried a tool called TestDisk (https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download), but it doesn't see the drive.

Can anyone help please? :)

Thanks