Rogue apps are using my phone more than I am

[SCjRqrQCnBQ19QoYCtdl]

Yes power saver is on.

How do you know if you've actually killed an app? I've read that just flicking them off the screen from the open apps screen doesn't necessarily kill them.

Well, you don't need to kill apps. Yes, generally speaking flicking them off the task switcher is not a good idea and doesn't accomplish anything, since most apps aren't doing anything in the background (exceptions being media player type apps that are running services in the background), unless you have a misbehaving app.

If you have a misbehaving app, you can go to apps manager and force stop. If you can, uninstall or disable it. If you must have that app and can't find an alternative, you will just have to live with the problems.

I get frustrated a bit, becuase you have watch dog, it is giving you notifications of problems, but instead of listing what problems it is identifying you turn of watch dog. You need to address the apps watch dog is reporting to you.

Watch dog is telling you about misbehaving apps. Until you address them you won't make progress imo.

I had watchdog on my tablet and it identified only one problem and it surprised me. It was Zite, and I wasn't even using it much. So, if watch dog is giving you a bunch of notifications I would pay attention.

 

[Viva Terlingua]

Well, you don't need to kill apps. Yes, generally speaking flicking them off the task switcher is not a good idea and doesn't accomplish anything, since most apps aren't doing anything in the background (exceptions being media player type apps that are running services in the background), unless you have a misbehaving app.

If you have a misbehaving app, you can go to apps manager and force stop. If you can, uninstall or disable it. If you must have that app and can't find an alternative, you will just have to live with the problems.

I get frustrated a bit, becuase you have watch dog, it is giving you notifications of problems, but instead of listing what problems it is identifying you turn of watch dog. You need to address the apps watch dog is reporting to you.

Watch dog is telling you about misbehaving apps. Until you address them you won't make progress imo.

I had watchdog on my tablet and it identified only one problem and it surprised me. It was Zite, and I wasn't even using it much. So, if watch dog is giving you a bunch of notifications I would pay attention.

Here is my latest Watchdog Screen. What do I need to do to make Facebook stop everything it's doing? I have all the syncs turned off in Account Settings and I have notifications set to inactive.

 

[Cattails_r_Edible]

Sign out of facebook and then disable the app! You can check facebook with the browser! I'm glad I'm not so battery conscious, I keep everything on and syncing and just charge it when I need to!

Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk 2

 

[Viva Terlingua]

I'm glad I'm not so battery conscious, I keep everything on and syncing and just charge it when I need to!

Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk 2

I wasn't either when I was on the iPhone. I would charge it overnight and then just charge again when I went to bed the next night (sometimes I went 2 nights between charges) and never worried about turning anything on or off.

I don't like charging my phone at work. I prefer to keep it in my pocket so I don't forget it when going out to a meeting or going home at the end of the day.

 

[livetoride4666]

I'm right with you on the battery life. I absolutely love the phone and have converted several people from iPhones, which I have used since the first one. I can't use my use phone at work so I put it on airplane mode and it still won't last me through the day. I know carry an iPod with me for music, because I am afraid to use my phone for this and have it die on me quickly. Even on airplane mode my battery still drains quite a bit.

 

[SCjRqrQCnBQ19QoYCtdl]

Here is my latest Watchdog Screen. What do I need to do to make Facebook stop everything it's doing? I have all the syncs turned off in Account Settings and I have notifications set to inactive.

These watch dog alerts don't necessarily mean anything on their own. When an app is running the percentage could be high. If you weren't running them when the alert went off, then there could be a problem.

You can see what is currently using the CPU by going teh CPU tab. To trouble shoot, I would try going into watch dog settings, preferences, click "Include phone processes", "monitor phone processes', "display all phone processes" just to make sure you are capturing all possible problems.

With all your raidos on, i.e. bluetooth, gps, wifi, data, go to the CPU tab and click on real time CPU. Watch it for a a while. It should settle down after a few seconds and you will likely see watch dog around 5% and everything else should be <2%.

If you don't see anything acting up, try running your suspect apps for a while, you could watch the real time cpu and compare what happens when they are running, then close the app like you usually do and look at real time cpu again to see if they act up. Obviously, if you run your app like my tracks, it is going to use cpu. But when you close it, it shouldn't. If it is, you will need to address that.

You can also freeze it and scroll down and look at apps that are even using a little cpu - that you may not even want on the phone, or may want to disable becuase you aren't using them - but might want to in the future - like I have 3 or 4 calendar widgets I downloaded, but not using. They showed up on my cpu list. So I either uninstalled the ones I defininately didn't like and disabled the ones I may go back to.

The stats tab also can show you overall background CPU use and how long the cpu is off.

There are a lot of tools there to improve you battery performance.

 

[Viva Terlingua]

These watch dog alerts don't necessarily mean anything on their own. When an app is running the percentage could be high. If you weren't running them when the alert went off, then there could be a problem.

You can see what is currently using the CPU by going teh CPU tab. To trouble shoot, I would try going into watch dog settings, preferences, click "Include phone processes", "monitor phone processes', "display all phone processes" just to make sure you are capturing all possible problems.

With all your raidos on, i.e. bluetooth, gps, wifi, data, go to the CPU tab and click on real time CPU. Watch it for a a while. It should settle down after a few seconds and you will likely see watch dog around 5% and everything else should be <2%.

If you don't see anything acting up, try running your suspect apps for a while, you could watch the real time cpu and compare what happens when they are running, then close the app like you usually do and look at real time cpu again to see if they act up. Obviously, if you run your app like my tracks, it is going to use cpu. But when you close it, it shouldn't. If it is, you will need to address that.

You can also freeze it and scroll down and look at apps that are even using a little cpu - that you may not even want on the phone, or may want to disable becuase you aren't using them - but might want to in the future - like I have 3 or 4 calendar widgets I downloaded, but not using. They showed up on my cpu list. So I either uninstalled the ones I defininately didn't like and disabled the ones I may go back to.

The stats tab also can show you overall background CPU use and how long the cpu is off.

There are a lot of tools there to improve you battery performance.

OK, I'm making some progress. I left my phone in my pocket from 9 am until noon today and the battery only decreased 2%.

I ran watchdog as you suggested and everything is behaving right now. No apps were above 2%, but there are still apps doing stuff that I don't know why they need to be doing anything. I realize they're not using much power, but they're still using some. I'd like to make them behave without disabling them. The number one perpetrator is Facebook. Any suggestions on settings I'm missing somewhere? Why does it need to do anything if I'm not using it. A couple of others are Songza (a music app) and the Sonos app for controlling my Sonos system. Why do they need to consume any power if I'm not using them.

 

[SCjRqrQCnBQ19QoYCtdl]

OK, I'm making some progress. I left my phone in my pocket from 9 am until noon today and the battery only decreased 2%.

I ran watchdog as you suggested and everything is behaving right now. No apps were above 2%, but there are still apps doing stuff that I don't know why they need to be doing anything. I realize they're not using much power, but they're still using some. I'd like to make them behave without disabling them. The number one perpetrator is Facebook. Any suggestions on settings I'm missing somewhere? Why does it need to do anything if I'm not using it. A couple of others are Songza (a music app) and the Sonos app for controlling my Sonos system. Why do they need to consume any power if I'm not using them.

Just leave it in your pocket 24/7 and your battery life will be great!

Well, I can't speak for songza or sonos. They may have some polling or something they do, I don't know if it would help to block background data on those or not, but may be worth a try, and/or disable any notifications from them.

Face book - block background data, disable any/all alerts that you can, disable background sync. I assume you have the photos still linked in the gallery? If so, you can do the trick where you disable facebook, break the link in the gallery app, then re-enable facebook. That will get the pics out of the gallery and maybe help with background facebook.

 

[Viva Terlingua]

OK here is an example. I've got show notifications disabled in the App info page. There are no settings in the app itself to control any of this. What happens if I stop these services? Will I have to stop these services every time I use the app? Can I disable the widget without disabling the app?

 

[SCjRqrQCnBQ19QoYCtdl]

OK here is an example. I've got show notifications disabled in the App info page. There are no settings in the app itself to control any of this. What happens if I stop these services? Will I have to stop these services every time I use the app? Can I disable the widget without disabling the app?

If you aren't running the app stopping the services won't hurt anything, although it may impact the widget I suppose. When you start the app again, needed services will restart. Stopping the widget itself may make it show an error where the widget is on the home screen. You could try it and if the widget behaves badly just delete the widget and replace/recreate it.

Well behaved apps should kill services if they are not needed. It sounds like sonos needs to update their app because it doesn't sound like it is needed - unless it is driving their widget functions.

 

[mcantu]

apps holding onto services and draining the battery seems to be an issue in every version of Android so far. i hate to say it but iOS seems to be better optimized for battery life in this regard...

 

[SCjRqrQCnBQ19QoYCtdl]

apps holding onto services and draining the battery seems to be an issue in every version of Android so far. i hate to say it but iOS seems to be better optimized for battery life in this regard...

It is an issue with the apps not the os. Really, when you experience it you should contact the app developer and complain.

 

[Jon_Doh]

Disable the apps that are running, but which you don't use. From the settings page select app, then apps running. Scroll down the list, tap on the offending app and click the disable button. Problem solved.

For what it's worth the battery on my ONE is ten times better than any of my iPhones. If you're not getting great battery life you definitely need to disable some apps that are running in the background.

 

[ivana1227]

I installed the AVG antivirus (free) app from Google Play. There are settings to optimize your battery life. ..along with other very handy options.
...As far as Facebook goes, if you really don't use it often then simply sign out when you're done your session. Another option is to go to Facebooks settings page and adjust your preferences there.
well, I certainly hope this info helps!

 

[PittsDriver]

Face book - block background data, disable any/all alerts that you can, disable background sync. I assume you have the photos still linked in the gallery? If so, you can do the trick where you disable facebook, break the link in the gallery app, then re-enable facebook. That will get the pics out of the gallery and maybe help with background facebook.

How do you do everything you suggested lol.

 

[PittsDriver]

I an trying to figure out why google search and Facebook are waking the phone up so much. I haven't used Google search once...

Sent from my HTC One using Android Central Forums

 

[SCjRqrQCnBQ19QoYCtdl]

How do you do everything you suggested lol.

What do you mean?

 

[PittsDriver]

How do you block background data on facebook, and how do you break the gallery pics?

 

[SCjRqrQCnBQ19QoYCtdl]

Block background data= Go to settings, more, usage, scroll down and find facebook, click it. Scroll down and check "restrict background data".

Break the link in gallery - Note it has been a while since I did this so I may mis the exact steps but something like -

Disable Facebook - go to app manager, click on face book, click disable.

Then go to the gallery - click overflow button, click Add online service, uncheck Facebook.

Then go back to app manager, click on face book, enable app.

 

[Farish]

apps holding onto services and draining the battery seems to be an issue in every version of Android so far. i hate to say it but iOS seems to be better optimized for battery life in this regard...

That is because IOS only allows a five services to run in the background. It is why IOS is very limited in multitasking. If you want a true multitasking operating system, then Android/W8 is your choice.