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It's been quite some time since I last used Android, but following the untimely death of my old "roaming" phone while travelling in India, I've just ended up buying myself a Micromax Q338. This runs a Micromax modified version of Android 5.1 Lollipop

After uninstalling or disabling a few of the annoying apps it shipped with, I'm still faced with one issue - adverts showing up as notifications on the lock screen, which seem to turn up when / just after connected to the internet. If I touch and hold on them, they show as being from System Update, as shown here:

Image of lockscreen App notifications settingsResult of clicking the i
Lockscreen / Notification settings (click images for larger variants)

As far as I can tell, System Update is an official component, and not a third party app. As such, I don't think I can/should uninstall it. I also can't find System Update under Settings / Sound & notification / Notification / App notification, so I can't apparently disable them that way.

So, how do I stop System Update popping up adverts on the lock screen when there is / has been internet?

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  • I'm 99% sure it's one of your apps that you have installed doing all the advertising. And one that didn't come from google play store as I do believe they forbid this kind of advertisement. What you can do is DL astro, backup all your apps and start removing 10 at a time, to figure out which one is the source. When such thing happens to me, it's usually one o the latest apps I installed, but it's has been doing this for you, for some time so ....
    – Иво Недев
    Apr 7, 2016 at 12:23
  • @ИвоНедев I've had the phone less than 24 hours, and it's been doing this since the moment I connected it to the internet, before installing anything (and I've only installed a couple of apps). So, I'm 100% sure it's not something I've installed! though I could well believe it's something that Micromax "helpfully" bundled into their build...
    – Gagravarr
    Apr 7, 2016 at 12:46
  • You could give one of the Filter/block notifications apps a try. // Was the device new or did you buy a used one? I tend to go with Ivo here that it could be a third party app posing under the name "system update". If it was a new device, I'd approach support and mention this kind of ads violates Google's TOS (though those apply to apps on the Play Store, mentioning it might have some effect).
    – Izzy ♦
    Apr 7, 2016 at 14:50
  • @Izzy Bought new. Is there any way to confirm / check what app is actually behind that notification / notification name? The Micromax Support site just directs you to a local service centre, so not sure I'll get much help/luck turning up at one of those and mentioning Google's terms of service...
    – Gagravarr
    Apr 7, 2016 at 15:07
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    @Izzy Sadly I can't accept my own answer for 2 more days... The image formatting was all new to me, despite having been around on Travel.SE and SO for quite some time, so I've learnt both Android and SE things today! Thanks for your help pointing me the right way :)
    – Gagravarr
    Apr 7, 2016 at 18:13

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Thanks to help from @Izzy, I've figured it out. Annoyingly, Micromax have bundled something calling itself System Update that is set as a System Component and is generating these adds

To find out what's going on, I followed Izzy's suggestion on trying some Filter/block notifications apps. Took a few tries, but one of them (Notification Block(DND Notify)), when showing System Apps, showed me this:

DND output (click for a larger version)

From that, we can see that the App calling itself System Update which is defined as a System App has the package com.rock.gota . A google for that shows many other people complaining about getting adverts on their lock screen from this app which their phone manufacturer had "helpfully" bundled into their base Android Image, just as Micromax have done :(

As I don't have a rooted phone, I couldn't use that tool to disable the notifications. Instead, I headed to Settings then Apps, discovered I could swipe right a few times to find All (wish I'd known that before!), scrolled down to this annoying System Update spammy advert app, and did a Force Stop. The Disable button is grey'd out, see How can I disable a stock app that has its Disable button greyed out? for how to get rid of an app like this now it's identified.

So, Micromax users beware - they're bundling spammy advert apps into their Android system builds :(

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