any battery life issues after JB OTA?

[B. Diddy]

B. Diddy, just wondering if disabling Location Reporting has any affect on Google Now's trip & return functions, etc.? As you said, I've not seen seen any negative impact on apps that use Maps for a function so if GN is unaffected, why in the world should anyone grant it permission?

As a side note I see that there is only 1 instance of Maps listed in Running Apps with it disabled where there's 2 with it enabled.

Sent from my Droid RAZR MAXX using Tapatalk2

I haven't noticed any effect. I don't really use the Google Now trip function, but I do still see estimated time to Home or places I may have recently searched in my notification shade, so I think it's still working as usual.

I found this thread over on xda which discusses Location Reporting. From what the person says, it sounds like turning off Location Reporting would render Google Now completely location blind, but when I turn on Google Now, it gives me the weather for the proper location as well as nearby events, so it can't be completely blind. I haven't been able to find a detailed enough official description from Google yet--there's this, but it still isn't very helpful.

 

[maxman1]

Wonder if the truth is that it only comes into play for keeping tabs on family members, etc. by sharing location data between phones?

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[MA2GA28]

I've noticed the battery life with JB is far from consistent. Had a nice charge over the last few days of about 55 hours down to about 19%. But during this cycle, with very similar usage, I'm down to 43% after only 24 hours. I can't pinpoint what is causing a difference with almost exactly similar usage.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[kawana72]

I figured that those who care would appreciate an update. After contacting Motorola multiple times over the course of a week and them insisting that I send the phone in for service, I used my insurance to get a refurb. What is interesting is that after getting the refurb and installing a few apps and such, the refurb phone is doing the exact same thing. "Media" runs until I stop it after a reboot. The burning question is why would it happen on 2 different phones? The only consistent thing between the phones is my Google account and the SIM card. I wonder if either could be causing a problem....I would lean towards the SIM because my Nexus 7 isn't going crazy like the MAXX is. Tonight at work, I tried to check Twitter, the display went black, the phone rebooted, and "Media" was there, ready to eat the battery. I had to force stop it upwards of 4 times to get it under control, that doesn't seem normal.... Ever since the JB update, this phone has been a nightmare.....

 

[B. Diddy]

Interesting thought. You should ask Verizon if you could get a replacement SIM for free to test out your theory.

 

[maxman1]

Interesting thought. You should ask Verizon if you could get a replacement SIM for free to test out your theory.

This.

Sent from my Droid RAZR MAXX using Tapatalk2

 

[hazelgreen]

Finally accepted the Jellybean last week. At first, battery life was great, phone was more quicker and more responsive. However, past three days it has been TERRIBLE.

Right now I am at 40 percent on 10h 17m15s with a total of 48m 25s on screen. Bleh. I did notice that the Android OS was the number one hog, it says CPU total 1h 54m 5s. Keep awake 4h 29m 33s.

Am I going to need to wipe out the phone and start over to get a better battery??? I've barely used the phone today, I'm on wifi and smart actions was on turning off data, etc. So disappointing

 

[B. Diddy]

Install Wake Lock Detector to see if something in the system is waking the phone up to do an unimportant task.

 

[MrHost]

Wouldn't it be easier to pull the card and see if it still happens? You can walk in and get a new Sim card for free. If I recall correctly.

Sent from my Xoom using Android Central Forums

 

[sharkstyle]

B. Diddy, just wondering if disabling Location Reporting has any affect on Google Now's trip & return functions, etc.? As you said, I've not seen seen any negative impact on apps that use Maps for a function so if GN is unaffected, why in the world should anyone grant it permission?

As a side note I see that there is only 1 instance of Maps listed in Running Apps with it disabled where there's 2 with it enabled.

I'm not sure if Google Now does automatic polling of location for it's GPS related cards, but if you swipe away your apps ("Google Search" aka Google Now) after you're done using them and then reopen them, it will do a refresh when it opens. If you do not swipe away the Google Search app, loading it back up may display stale data, in which case you would want to hit your Menu softkey and manually hit Refresh for updated data.

Wonder if the truth is that it only comes into play for keeping tabs on family members, etc. by sharing location data between phones?

This quote kind of answers the question above about, "why in the world should anyone grant it permission?"
I know for a fact the reason some people (like myself) may set the option to "Your location is updated automatically" (and probably in conjunction with the checkbox below it to "Report from this device"), is because they use Google Latitude. From the video, it's presented more as a social feature to use with Friends and Family; I use it for that, but I also use it in conjunction with Backitude to record my travels.

For what it's worth, I use my phone is off the charger for about 21 hours a day. I have my location updated automatically and report my location from my device (both enabled) and Backitude about an hour a day (at 1 minute intervals). I use my phone moderately and end the day with about 45% charge. The caveat to my information is that I am lucky to be connected to a Wi-Fi network for a lot of the day.

Google Latitude - YouTube

 

[HooperD]

It sounds like everyone is honing in on the cause of your battery juice consumption. Unless this gets perfectly nailed down, it might be smart to have another plan. I'm a professional photographer, so I?ve become very battery-aware. It?s important for me to have back-up power. An elegant solution I?ve learned about recently for cell phones is external batteries and portable power supplies (which are actually the same thing). These devices can give you a lot of peace of mind. I learned about portable power supplies from Batteries4Less.com, which seems to be a good source for these.
A sample of what I'm talking about can be found here: Samsung Spare Battery Packs | Samsung Epic 4G Touch sph d710 External Battery Pack

 

[kawana72]

Replacement sim did not help.

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[LoisDroidX]

I still haven't found a solution for my phone, but have repeatedly observed the following, which I hope will give someone an idea of what might work. My usual routine is to charge my phone at night, and turn it off when it is fully charged. Then just before I leave home for the day, I turn it on. From there, I spend about 20 minutes on the road, then arrive at my office, which has wifi. Often both the wifi and cellular data signals are weak in the office, despite the fact that there's an access point just outside my office, and several other points throughout the building. Anyway, the battery drains at 6-10% per hour in this situation, with near-constant CPU wakelock caused by mediascanner. A few hours before I head out, I plug the phone in to re-charge, removing it either when it's full or when it's time to leave. At this point, I leave it on at least until I get home, but usually a few hours after that before I plug it in again to recharge. Often, after this second charging, the battery drain is 1% per hour or even less (and mediascanner no longer using significant battery). The 20-minute drive home is on 3g/4G, then the wifi kicks in at home. Sometimes instead of going straight home, I go places on the way, where usually I'm on cell data, not wifi. In those cases, the battery drain is also slower, but tends to vary.

All this would make one think that weak signal is a likely culprit, but I've sometimes tried putting the phone in airplane mode for a while, which I would think would stop it from looking for a signal and thus slow the battery drain. But no, the battery keeps on draining, with "media" (or, according to Wakelock Detector, Mediascanner) is running most of the time - like 3.5 out of 4 hours. I downloaded DisableService (recommended on XDA as a possible fix), but it can't disable mediascanner because I don't have root, so that's no help. While there seems to be a correlation with location/signal quality and battery drain, mediascanner appears to be to blame, and shouldn't have anything to do with signal quality or type.

I've also tried removing the microsd card, and that didn't help, so if the phone is busily scanning media all day, it may be scanning the "sd" portion of the internal memory. But why would it decide it doesn't need to scan any more right after it's been charged while running, and left on after charging?

 

[LoisDroidX]

So, after some more exploring, I now suspect Pocket of being involved in this problem. I went into its Settings, and changed the location where it stored offline files. That resulted in the 3000+ offline files being deleted & redownloaded to the new location. Until most of the files had downloaded, I had about 2 days of restored battery life. Once they'd all come in, Media Scanner was back to its old obsessive self, dominating my cpu, eating my battery, and keeping my phone awake >75% of the time. I haven't uninstalled Pocket - yet, since it's so useful, but it may come to that if I don't find another solution.

 

[kawana72]

So, after some more exploring, I now suspect Pocket of being involved in this problem. I went into its Settings, and changed the location where it stored offline files. That resulted in the 3000+ offline files being deleted & redownloaded to the new location. Until most of the files had downloaded, I had about 2 days of restored battery life. Once they'd all come in, Media Scanner was back to its old obsessive self, dominating my cpu, eating my battery, and keeping my phone awake >75% of the time. I haven't uninstalled Pocket - yet, since it's so useful, but it may come to that if I don't find another solution.

Where exactly did you change the storage location to? I guess ultimately, it wouldn't matter as long as it's still on the phone which is causing Media to run like crazy. I too like pocket, maybe I can let the devs know that their app is misbehaving in a major way... Wonder if they care....

 

[LoisDroidX]

There's only one choice available: sd-card on or off. When I unchecked "sd-card" it moved it from the internal "sd-card" to the external, physical sd-card. Rechecking "sd-card" moved it back. Tonight, I put .nomedia files in the storage location: mnt/sdcard/Android/data/com.ideashower.readitlater.pro/files/RIL_ofline/RIL_assets and mnt/sdcard/Android/data/com.ideashower.readitlater.pro/files/RIL_ofline/RIL_pages (each level starting with .../files).

From another forum, I found a suggestion that the JB bug prevents .nomedia files from being respected by mediascanner, so I'm not sure putting them in will do any good. Another post was more helpful in providing a workaround that is consistent with my experience: instead of charging the phone, then turning it off for the night after charging, leave it on, connected to the charger, and then pull it off the charger when ready to start the day. I'm not crazy about that - why leave a phone on when it doesn't really need to be - but it worked. Apparently, mediascanner most likes to go nuts when the phone is first powered off; once it gets all that out of its system (takes hours), you can pull it off charger and it seems to behave until the next power-cycle. So, I did that last night, and had great battery life today (about 3% per hour instead of 8-10%). Then I put in the .momedia files all over Pocket's storage areas, powered down, then powered back up. I'm not sure if it is fast-draining or not, since Lookout decided it was its time to scan everything, and it dominated the battery for the past hour or so.

As for Pocket, if you check your phone and see similar behavior to mine, please do contact them. I did so a couple of days ago and got a robo-response, but nothing further. I also tried to post something to their "public questions" site, and it hasn't appeared yet. Maybe if enough others trace their problems to them & report it to them, they'll listen.

 

[kawana72]

There's only one choice available: sd-card on or off. When I unchecked "sd-card" it moved it from the internal "sd-card" to the external, physical sd-card. Rechecking "sd-card" moved it back. Tonight, I put .nomedia files in the storage location: mnt/sdcard/Android/data/com.ideashower.readitlater.pro/files/RIL_ofline/RIL_assets and mnt/sdcard/Android/data/com.ideashower.readitlater.pro/files/RIL_ofline/RIL_pages (each level starting with .../files).

From another forum, I found a suggestion that the JB bug prevents .nomedia files from being respected by mediascanner, so I'm not sure putting them in will do any good. Another post was more helpful in providing a workaround that is consistent with my experience: instead of charging the phone, then turning it off for the night after charging, leave it on, connected to the charger, and then pull it off the charger when ready to start the day. I'm not crazy about that - why leave a phone on when it doesn't really need to be - but it worked. Apparently, mediascanner most likes to go nuts when the phone is first powered off; once it gets all that out of its system (takes hours), you can pull it off charger and it seems to behave until the next power-cycle. So, I did that last night, and had great battery life today (about 3% per hour instead of 8-10%). Then I put in the .momedia files all over Pocket's storage areas, powered down, then powered back up. I'm not sure if it is fast-draining or not, since Lookout decided it was its time to scan everything, and it dominated the battery for the past hour or so.

As for Pocket, if you check your phone and see similar behavior to mine, please do contact them. I did so a couple of days ago and got a robo-response, but nothing further. I also tried to post something to their "public questions" site, and it hasn't appeared yet. Maybe if enough others trace their problems to them & report it to them, they'll listen.

I work night shift, and when I'm on the way home I'll hard reset my phone. "Media" usually shows up right away, using 40% or more of the battery. When I'm ready for bed, I plug it in and when I wake up its ready to go, with "Media" not showing up for the rest of the day.

So, after seeing your previous post, I uninstalled pocket and cleared the storage location of the associated files. Upon doing a hard reset tonight, "Media" is not present like it used to be. I'm definitely going to let the devs know, and I won't stop until I get a personal response.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[LoisDroidX]

Thanks for confirming the theory. I haven't taken Pocket off yet, but instead have been leaving my phone on. Maybe we should also post feedback on the Play store. That may be another way to get their attention.

 

[kawana72]

Thanks for confirming the theory. I haven't taken Pocket off yet, but instead have been leaving my phone on. Maybe we should also post feedback on the Play store. That may be another way to get their attention.

I think so, too. I'm bummed, because I use pocket everyday so this is a pain not to have it.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[LoisDroidX]

I got the following reply today from Pocket:

There is an issue that our developers are aware of and I have sent your information and case to them. We appreciate your patience as we continue to work on a resolve.

It sounds like there are third-party apps that allow disabling the media scanner, I would suggest that you look for one if interested.​

I had found an app called "disableservice" recommended by XDA, but it only disables system services (like mediascanner, of course) if you are rooted. My guess is that's a limitation not of the app, but of how Android works, but if anyone knows of a way to turn off mediascanner without root, please post.