FAQ


Kaspersky anti virus is detecting Light Flow as Malware (Jan 2017)

I've been in touch with Kaspersky about this and had the following reply:

Hello, 
According your file: “Sorry, it was a false detection. It will be fixed in the next update. Thank you for your help.”
Thank you
Best Regards,

Olesya Golubkova | Partner Account Manager Technology Alliances | Kaspersky Lab


I've upgraded to Android 6 and now have a persistent notification icon, can I remove it
See here for why it's been added: http://www.reactle.com/2015/10/changes-for-android-6-marshmallow.html

I've installed Legacy and want to re-enable the standard version but can't find it.
Go into Light Flow Legacy, select about (top right hand menu) and click on the button to enable the standard version. It then takes up to 30 seconds for the app to show in the launcher again.

I've installed Legacy but I'm seeing adverts and can't add notifications for apps I want, but I've paid for the app.
If you've paid for the app to show the full features in the Legacy version you need to install the full version onto your phone. Then when you run Legacy it'll prompt to disable the full version and the purchase will be validated and you should then start seeing the full features.

I want to uninstall the app, but the option isn't available
If you have enabled the "Admin" option in Light flow->Settings->General settings->Admin then Android doesn't let you uninstall apps that are using admin features. Just go into Light flow and switch this option off. It can also usually be switched off in the phone settings->security where admin apps are also listed.

What is the difference between Light Flow, Light Flow lite and Light Flow Legacy?
Light Flow is the most feature complete version.

The lite version only allows for notifications that are stacked up to change color very slowly (after about 20 seconds), whereas the full version can change on just about every second.
The paid version of the app has no adverts and support for 1000's of app's notifications

The legacy version is for Android 6 users who don't want a notification permanently in the notification bar. It has the same features as the standard versions except any android 6 specific features (such as run-time permissions, camera flash standard support). The legacy version defaults to showing the features of the lite version unless you additionally have the full version installed. This is to validate the purchase.

If you install multiple versions of the app when running a version it will prompt for the suggested actions to take.

I get duplicate notifications sounds or vibrations
If you are using light flow to control the notification sounds or the vibration patterns then you should disable those aspects of the notification in the native app.

Do I have to disable stock notifications?
No. Keep them on because some notification types Light Flow relies on these notifications for it to work, just switch off the actual sound and vibrations from those apps if you are settings those up to be controlled by Light Flow

I've been using the lite version and now want to upgrade to the full version, how do I do this?
From version 3.54.11 it is possible to upgrade via an in-app purchase.


What does Rooting my phone mean (gaining Root access) and do I need to Root my phone? 
Rooting your phone is essentially giving you higher privileges to access certain parts of the underlying operating system. See a guide here. It's similar to "jail breaking" an iphone.
Some phones require root access for Light Flow to control the LEDs, some you can get more control by rooting and others it makes no difference to at all, the app will try to automatically disable options if you are not rooted, but still display them so that you can see the differences possible by having a rooted phone.

My battery drains quicker, is there anything that can be done?
We've put a lot of effort into minimising battery drain, but as the app needs to be always running there will be some drain on the battery. There are several things that can be done to help though:
If using the camera flash as a notification type, set the "notification - battery" option to either medium/slow or very slow
Try using "notification method on battery" priority mode. This allows the phone to sleep more frequently and use less battery, or choose "Show latest only" for even less battery use.
Set notifications to automatically switch off after a period of time
Use a slower cycling time in "notification method on battery" so the notifications cycle around less frequently
Try to minimize the number of different colors. While there is only one color combination type of notification outstanding the app partially sleeps more frequently
The instant alert option (in the labs) uses a fair bit of battery, try not to use it to improve battery
The USA/Canada versions of the Galaxy S3 use less battery when using "always on" instead of flash rates

I try the app, but just get standard notifications not all the pretty colors I've chosen. Why? 
Firstly check out our Phone compatibility page to get an indication of whether the lights will work on your phone.
If you had notifications already outstanding when you started the app, or notifications arrive before you exit the app, they will need to be cleared before the app will show it's colors. Also note that the app will not work on all phones.

The app seems to require an awful lot of permissions, are they all really needed?
See app permissions here

When I switch on Notification Access or Accessibility for Light Flow it prompts that the app may capture credit card details, why do you want those?
See app permissions here



Notification speed "always on" doesn't work, or I can't set the blink rage
This is usually a phone limitation. E.g. the Nexus One, Nexus 5 and recent Motorola phones doesn't support "always on" and the HTC phones don't currently support blinking within the app. The feature may be added to the app later for HTC phones if we find an efficient method that does not drain the battery too much.

I choose a color for a notification, but my phone shows a different color, why?
Different phones have different capabilities with their notification lights. For example the nexus one allows full control over the color, whereas some other phones are limited to a different range. According to the android documentation the phone will automatically choose the closest color to the color trying to be set.

I have phone x and notifications do not work, can you fix it?
Not all phones use the standard Android access methods to set the LED colors. This is true for pretty much all HTC phones. We are currently looking at ways to increase the phones that the app is compatible with.

My other notifications for other apps don't work anymore
The only way to get the successive colors working is to disable the current notifications from other apps with the led. Lots of apps are supported in the full version of the app and if there's an app not supported that you want then let us know.

I've installed replacement app x and it doesn't seem to work.
I've only tested it on the stock versions of the apps and ones specifically listed in the market. Let me know if it works with others and I'll see what I can do.


What is meant by "Clear notification style"?
When you get a notification it gives you the ability to decide on how that notification gets cleared. The default settings are usually best for most people, but if you are experiencing problems getting notifications to switch off then there are a few options available.
Manual - with this setting when you get a notification, you will also get a notification icon in your notification bar at the top of the screen. You will need to manually select this or press "clear all" to remove the notification.
Screen - with this setting as soon as your screen is switched on then notification will be automatically cleared.
App - this is the standard setting for most notification types. This usually works in a similar way to the native notification by switching off as soon as you enter the app that the notification was for.
Some notifications have different options specific to them. For example voicemail - which can clear when you've no voicemails left. Battery - which can clear when your battery is charged to a higher level. Signal - which will clear when your phone has a cell signal again.
Notification removed - with this setting as soon as the apps notification is removed, Light Flow will pick up this and clear its notification

Do you support any other languages?
You can find the state of progress on the languages available (or contribute to the translations at https://crowdin.net/project/lightflow)

It crashes for me or just doesn't work.
Let us know as much as you can on where the error occurred and we will look into it. It is important to let us know what areas are not working (ie maybe just missed calls don't clear the light, or no lights work for any app)
Letting us know the model of your phone and if you've flashed any custom roms onto the phone will also help us.

Could you integrate app x into Light Flow?
If the app you are interested in integrating has it's own notifications sent to the notification bar then probably yes. Get in touch and we can look into integrating it in a future build.

I enabled SMS, MMS or Calendar reminders then next time I look they are disabled, why is this?
The app checks to see if you've got access to the stock content providers, if it can't get hold of them it will automatically disable them - it's better than a "force close"

How can you help me with a bug?
Firstly provide us with as much detail as possible to help diagnose the possible issue.
If we request debug logs to be provided follow the following procedure.
Go into Light Flow, select "Tools", then "Logging", select "File Logging". Then exit the app with either the "home" key or your "back" button.

Then follow the steps you had to recreate the problem you are having, trying to minimize other activity you are doing on the phone while in debug mode.

Once the issue has been recreated, so back into Light Flow, select "Tools", then "Logging", select "No Logging".
Some files should then have been created on your sdcard under the following directory /lightflow/tmp
Email these files to us to examine.

Why does the app not show in the task list anymore?
This is to try and work around an issue in Jelly bean (Android 4.1) where swiping away the app causes it to kill the service that monitors for events. This shouldn't happen and I've reported it to the android team.

My phone goes really slow after installing.
This is usually related to the accessibility service. To confirm this, go into your phone settings, accessibility and switch off lightflow. Does you phone speed up again? If so try install another app that uses accessibility (I'd recommend Llama from the play store). Switch on accessibility for that and see if it slows down again. If it does, then usually a factory reset fixes the issue and the apps can be reinstalled.

The play store thinks I've purchased the app or it's not downloading
I've known a couple of other people have this issue. The only thing I can think to try and do is go into your phone settings, applications and select "market"/"google play" and choose clear data and clear cache and see if this helps.
If not, I would try contact google directly and see if they can help as it's something developers have little/no control over. The other thing to try is wait 24 hours. Sometimes the problem just goes away over time

I want to purchase the app but don't have a credit card or can't purchase apps in my country.
You can make payments to us via PayPal. Contact us and we'll send through the details and also email you each new version of the app. The app is also available in the Amazon store and Android pit

I'm getting a notification color and I'm not sure what's causing it. How do I find out?
From version 3.20.100 of the app the active notifications show when you enter the app

I keep getting nagged about accessibility/notification access not being switched on, but it is.
This can sometimes occur due to the changes made to the app to get it to work in gingerbread (android 4.1).
The best way around this is to go into lightflow->tools->select backup and backup your settings.
Then uninstall the app and reinstall it.
Finally go into lightflow->tools->select restore and choose the file you backup up.

The low battery notification doesn't work
Note that this notification will only trigger when the battery changes from an ok state to a low state. If you enable this setting when the battery is already low it won't trigger until charged up and lowered over the threshold again.

The charging battery notification doesn't work
This may be related to the "charged" notification. The default it to only show as charging up to 90%, then switch to "charged". In the charged notification you can adjust the threshold of this to a different value.

When upgrading from 3.15.xxx to 3.20.xxx some colors now show incorrect
There was a slight change to two colors for this release, more to do with the visual interface changes to be able to differentiate colors with the new color picker easier.

If you want the old colors back choose the custom color option and select the following HEX values
For turquoise try a custom color of: FF00FF33
For lime green try FF7FFF00
For purple try FF110022


I backed up my settings but now can't restore them or can't find them
Version 3.54.0 upwards changes the way notifications are backed up. They can now be set to backup the cloud using android storage access framework. To get at the old files go into lightflow, tools, restore and then choose the picker menu button and choose internal storage, then if you pull out the menu bar you should see the "internal storage" option. Go to /lightflow and you should see your files.

If you can't restore the files because they are not selectable, then try rename them and add .txt to the end of the name and they should be able to be restored.



 
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