what is Android Media Process and how do you keep it from torturing your battery to death?

[ExceptforKhloe]

I've had problems with battery life since the system started getting updated. One after another. I never get ahead.

And today I've gotten over 60 alerts from Watch dog about this. It reminded me if why I rarely restart my tablet, just leaving it asleep most of the time, sometimes weeks between actually turning it off.

When I restart my Nexus 7 this tends to be a problem, then just stops after a point. Or at least I stop getting updates. Watch dog says it uses in excess of 21.1% of the CPU when it flares. Even killing it, sometimes it pops back up immediately. Regardless, it never stays away for long.


What..... is it? I don't need this, since Android is increasingly using power like it's having a fire sale. Most of the search engine search results are other android devices, and no real solutions besides.

 

[friedtators]

i have had problems over time with the app "Currents" causing issues with media process. its sorta like the registry on windows. as a last resort you can clear the data and it will rebuild it you leave it on. i would look to see if currents is installed or another app could be the culprit. good luck tracking down the app

 

[ExceptforKhloe]

Yeah, I've got Currents. It's good, but I often forget I have it.

 

[ExceptforKhloe]

It's been alseep for the better part of two and a half hours, and dropped twenty percent.

 

[ExceptforKhloe]

Watch dog says this android media process "service"..."this app cannot be launched"


Under my nexus "settings" "apps", there are two things I'm unsure about.

One is "media"at 14 mb, with one process and one service. The service is "media scanner service", stated by the media app.

The process is android.process.media at 14 mb.

 

[B. Diddy]

Currents is notorious for being a memory and battery hog, so I strongly suggest disabling it. If you don't want to disable it, you should at least change its refresh rate to manual. I prefer using Pulse News over Currents--Pulse is fairly lightweight, fast, and has a nice interface.

Are you noticing Media Scanner being excessively active after you restart your device? If so, do you have a lot of music or video files stored on your device? Media Scanner might be bogging things down right after restarting because it's scanning all storage for media files, which can be a fairly intense process. I have several GB of music on my Razr Maxx's external SD card, and whenever I restart the phone, I notice that Media Scanner works for about 15 minutes, which is coincident with the phone getting kind of warm.

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Android Central Forums

 

[Groid]

Media scanner can get hung up on corrupt video or music files. It happened on my wife's phone and until I found and deleted the corrupt .mp3, her phone ran hot and was unstable.

 

[1812dave]

after trying a variety of things I had to reset my Note 2 to get Media process from wiping out the battery. The problem began (seemingly out of the blue) one morning and was extremely aggressive in killing the battery. Every few minutes it would lose a few percent. that was more than a few months ago and I have not had a repeat of the problem.

NM. that was on my Note 2. I keep getting my Note 2 and N7 forum links confused...

 

[ExceptforKhloe]

Groid: I found similar claims for other devices, but how to identify the troubled files?

 

[ExceptforKhloe]

B Diddy: yes, Media Scanner does. Longer than 15 minutes, and almost all day yesterday until I force stopped it. I didn't identify it with android media process until yesterday finally. I'll check out Pulse.

When you say disable Currents, EXACTLY what do you mean?
And how do I change the refresh rates?

 

[Groid]

I found the bad .mp3 by looking at the files while hooked up to my pc. I found one that was extremely small, wouldn't play, and I deleted it. More often it is a video file, I think. If the file is very small it is probably corrupt. If you have Currents installed, but don't use it, you can uninstall or disable it under Settings > Apps > All (swipe screen from right to left twice) > find Currents, you should be able to disable or uninstall it.

 

[B. Diddy]

I can't remember if Currents is a stock preinstalled app, because those kinds of apps can't be uninstalled--only disabled. To disable an app, go to Settings/Apps/All, select Currents, and tap Disable. This will inactivate the app, but doesn't remove it from storage (which can't be done unless you root the device.

If Currents is uninstallable, then by all means uninstall. Keep in mind that if it's a stock app that has been updated, then first you have to uninstall updates, and then disable.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Android Central Forums

 

[B. Diddy]

To change the data refresh rate for Currents, there should be a setting in the app. After opening the app, hit the menu button, and look for options for data refresh.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Android Central Forums

 

[ExceptforKhloe]

Yes, Currents was pre-installed.

I don't really have much in the way of music/video, other than what came free with the device like some of the free Google Play music.

Lots of PDFs, like from archive.org and Project Gutenberg.

 

[B. Diddy]

I think PDFs count as media, so those are all probably being scanned each time you restart the tablet. As mentioned above, I wonder if one of those PDFs might be a little corrupted, which could be making Media Scanner hang.

Since Currents was preinstalled, try disabling it as I suggested above. Make sure to uninstall any updates first.

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Android Central Forums

 

[Groid]

Try putting a zero-byte '.nomedia' file in the folder where the .pdfs are. That is supposed to exclude the folder from media scans.

 

[ExceptforKhloe]

How useful is Pulse for offline reading? Seems largely just "blurbs" when offline.

 

[B. Diddy]

Yes, good point. I believe Pulse is good only if you're connected.

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Android Central Forums

 

[ExceptforKhloe]

"Android process acore" has stopped?!?

 

[ExceptforKhloe]

This thing is plugged in now, but the energy is dropping anyway. I would blame it on a faulty connection, which it's not impossible that's a problem.

But there seem to be so many software issues (hopefully)I don't think about it much.



When I'm at home with no WiFi and unplugged, it dropped at a rate of 18-20%. I leave location services, Bluetooth, all that crap off with low screen brightness. This has been going for 8 days now and getting worse.