Question App shuts off at same time a couple times per week

[nylaw37]

I'm not an Android guy for, starters. lol I have one app I need on 24/7. I don't actually use the device as a phone. Just for this app to stay running. I went into developer mode and have this phone to keep the screen on 24/7 while charging. That works great. The issue is 2 days a week at either 3:18 PM or AM the screen is on but it puts the app in the background. I have to drive to the office just to put the app back on. The app puts out a GPS that's why I need it running. How do I find what's causing this? I assume some rouge app or timer I never set? At first I thought it was an electrical issue with the building. This week I put a battery backup on it and today at 3:18 PM it did it again. I need some guidance to figure this out.

This is a new Galaxy X Cover Pro on Verizon if that helps. I deleted all the apps that came with it that I didn't need so it's just bare bones. This is driving me crazy. lol

 

[SpookDroid]

Have you checked if the phone is set to reboot at a certain time/interval? Or are there any automations running? You can also try 'pinning' the app (go into the recent apps menu and tap the icon above the running app you want; you should see some options and you can use either KEEP OPEN or PIN THIS APP). Also, make sure the phone isn't 'optimizing' the app for battery savings (go to your app drawer, long press the app icon and go into the INFO option; there, find the BATTERY section and ensure the app is set to UNRESTRICTED).

If that doesn't help, the app itself may be updating or something at that specific time/interval.

 

[nylaw37]

Have you checked if the phone is set to reboot at a certain time/interval? Or are there any automations running? You can also try 'pinning' the app (go into the recent apps menu and tap the icon above the running app you want; you should see some options and you can use either KEEP OPEN or PIN THIS APP). Also, make sure the phone isn't 'optimizing' the app for battery savings (go to your app drawer, long press the app icon and go into the INFO option; there, find the BATTERY section and ensure the app is set to UNRESTRICTED).

If that doesn't help, the app itself may be updating or something at that specific time/interval.

Thank you for the quick reply. AFAIK there is not a reboot schedule. I don't "think" there are automations but I should check both those things. I am going to need direction how to do that. I am going to check all the other things you suggested.

I am an IOS and PC guy so when you reboot those the opened programs also close. I did notice with the Android after an intentional reboot the previous programs still seem open so possibly a reboot is occurring? I was also wondering if there was a log somewhere that I could scan through to see if this 3:18 time is scheduled somewhere. I think with your help will be able to pin this down.

 

[SpookDroid]

Automations depend on what apps you use (the 'built in' system should be Samsung Routines), but if you use apps like Tasker or IFTTT (which I don't think it's the case, but still possible) then those could be effecting a reboot.

Some apps run updates at specific times (if that's internal coding in the app with no Settings to disable, that's something you should message the app dev about).

Most likely it's either an automated reboot (on Samsung devices, look under Device Care/Auto optimization) or the app being put into sleep mode by the Battery optimization settings.

I'd also disable auto-updates from the Play store (at least for that app) just in case those are causing the reboot.

 

[VidJunky]

Welcome to Android Central forums.

I'm late so I have a few questions.

Are you ever doing anything to reboot the phone?

How do you know the time? Is it that you don't remember if it's AM or PM or is it that you just know it's 3:18 and you're left to guess?

Given you're only using the phone for this one purpose and have removed as much as possible, have you considered factory resetting the device and trying again? You've haven't changed anything, added or removed anything, and I'm sure if you have to travel to reset it, no one is using it for anything, my guess is the system is just bugging with no restarts, attention and being on 24/7 with no restarts. I mean you might try rebooting it a few times and see if the issue clears up. You could also do a partition cache wipe, but if nothing is moving on and off the device in the way of updates and activity this may have little effect. I think your best bet would be a factory reset.

 

[nylaw37]

Welcome to Android Central forums.

I'm late so I have a few questions.

Are you ever doing anything to reboot the phone?

How do you know the time? Is it that you don't remember if it's AM or PM or is it that you just know it's 3:18 and you're left to guess?

Given you're only using the phone for this one purpose and have removed as much as possible, have you considered factory resetting the device and trying again? You've haven't changed anything, added or removed anything, and I'm sure if you have to travel to reset it, no one is using it for anything, my guess is the system is just bugging with no restarts, attention and being on 24/7 with no restarts. I mean you might try rebooting it a few times and see if the issue clears up. You could also do a partition cache wipe, but if nothing is moving on and off the device in the way of updates and activity this may have little effect. I think your best bet would be a factory reset.

The way I can tell when it glitches is I can click on a map and it tells me the last time the phone put out a GPS signal. I did see it glitch once at 3:19 PM. I caught it once at 3:18AM. I am going to the office tomorrow. I printed out the 2 previous posts and I am going to go through everything he advised. I will report back here with the results.

I have rebooted it and that's when I saw the apps didn't close after a reboot like IOS does. I really thought it was an electrical glitch from the building as they are having electrical issues with the elevator usually in the afternoon. That in the end was not the case. It seems rebooting it vs just clicking on the app doesn't make any difference. This usually happens once to twice per week. The other odd thing is it takes about 90 minutes for it show the glitch. I usually don't see it until around 5pm. I click on the map and that's when it shows it last reported at 3:18. It's so stupid that I have to even do this but that's another issue with the crappy Salesforce software I am forced to use for work. I basically have to do this to make it look like someone is working in that area when they really aren't. lol

 

[VidJunky]

If you can restart the phone and it picks up where it left off, even reopening or resuming the app, you might consider adding a scheduled restart to maintain the phone's health. Maybe, every Sunday at midnight or something when it wouldn't be in demand or noticed.

I'm kind of stuck on the same time thing because it's hard to explain. An electrical issue could explain a glitch, but everything would have to happen the same time for each event and that brings us back to difficult to explain. I struggle to think of any external thing.

As for the 90 minute thing, I would imagine that goes back to your system or at least the use of the GPS data being used. Without knowing your system but knowing automation systems I would imagine this behavior is as designed. This is just speculation obviously, but many times there is a delay value before raising the alarm. You wouldn't want the system to report an outage if it loses signal for a minute or two, that could be the time needed for a reboot, or an over loaded tower shifting traffic to another tower, and the system just wants to be sure there is a failure before reporting. I would imagine if I'm right about that there would be a setting for it, but we would have to know more about what this all is and you might not be at liberty to talk about that, but it is something your IT might be aware of and/or have access to, if you do not.

Anyway, let us know what you find. Good luck.

 

[nylaw37]

So the way it works is that on a map it shows where various units are. On the units it has a green light if the GPS is working. When the green light goes out I can click on it and it will state last seen 3:18PM. Maybe I don't catch it right away but the green light stays on longer than 3:18. If I did some automated reboot I would have to be there to start the app up so I don't think that would work although the suggestion about pinning it to the front might be the answer. I can do that and try a manual reboot and see what happens. There are no IT people I have access to. lol There are so many other things wrong with this software that has nothing to do with this also. I'm not a tech guy but I believe this software was designed for appts. and not for real time assignments. They sort of tweaked it but it is lacking. They would have to spend millions to fix it correctly. They aren't going to do that as I don't think they really care. If they fixed it to work correctly I wouldn't have to do any of this. We had 3 systems previous that worked so much better. This system instead of having territories like the 3 previous systems it sort of doles assignments out to whoever is closest which seems like a good idea but it's not. It assigns assignments to the wrong units who happen to be closer. So I am sort of trying to intercept these assignments from an area where I don't actually have units unless an assignment is in that area. These assignments go out to a much larger unit because they have more people but are not the right people for the assignments. We are smaller but highly specialized to deal with certain situations. I am trying to be vague as I don't want to give out private info but in a nutshell that's what the issue is. The other team is suppose to decline those assignments but they usually don't. The assignments either sit for hours or lesser trained units attempt them so it's just not a good situation that has been created. I came up with the idea of gaming the system with the phone and while not perfect it has really helped a lot in having the assignments come to us as they always have in the past.

 

[VidJunky]

I understand if it isn't something you feel you should share. Everything where I am is proprietary and unique in my industry. It's a challenge for sure. I misinterpreted you saying, "rebooting it vs just clicking on the app doesn't make any difference", as meaning the app remained open after reboot or that you could tap the app and find it running. Your description of the lights and report cleared up my question of how does it present.

While we wait to see what your results are, I looked this up to better explain my concerns over rebooting and its benefits. You can read the whole thing, including the videos about the importance of the reboot, here.

Rebooting your phone weekly is great for its health, acting like a "refresh" to clear memory, stop rogue apps, fix glitches, improve battery life, and install security updates, a tip supported by agencies like the NSA. It resolves minor issues like slowness or connectivity problems and helps maintain consistent performance without harming the device, preventing issues before they become major.

 

[nylaw37]

I think you stated it best. If I reboot the phone, the app is still running in the background but the GPS isn't broadcasting. This seems to be the state I find it in when I go to "fix" it. If I manually reboot the phone which I have mostly done when I get there, it boots up in the same state with the app running in the background but not broadcasting until I click on it. If I don't reboot it I can just click on the app which brings it back to the desktop and it starts broadcasting again.

The app itself is odd. On the users end it states everything is working properly but also may not be broadcasting the GPS. I have to call my team and tell them to resync the app as their green light is off and they always argue with me it shows fine on their end. lol Now I don't call them any more. I send them a screenshot of their green light being grayed out and that seems to solve it.

I originally tried this with IOS. There is really not a good way to keep the screen on so this didn't work at all. I saw all these remote login apps that are supposed to work with Android. I believe these only work with older versions. I tried everyone of them. I followed all the directions and was never able to do an unattended login as they all state they do.

 

[mustang7757]

Couple things not sure what Android version your on.

1. Setting>scroll down to Device care
* Tap battery >background usage limits> turn off putting apps to sleep

2. Auto optimize tap>turn off

3. Lock that app to recent app list so it doesn't get bump out of ram
To do that bring up recent app cards then tap the icon of that app and choose keep open

 

[nylaw37]

Just got back.

1. Pinned the app to the start screen.

2. Auto optimize was already off. The battery sleep on that app was off but I turned everything off.

3. I turned off auto updates. I went into history and the dates and times don't match up so I don't think it was that.

4. When I went to the play store there was an update for that app so I let it update while I was there. I didn't see a way to turn that off in the Play Store.

5. I had battery saver on which only charges it to 80% I turned that off.

The only setting I wasn't sure about was was some kind of data setting for the app. It was on. I shut it off and it stated some things weren't going to do this or that so I turned it back on.

I tried looking the setting up on my Android tablet but I couldn't find that app which was driving me crazy. I wanted to tell you guys the exact setting. After a few minutes I realized I don't use the app on the tablet I log into to the system. lol I'm losing it. The system is a Gantt. I can see everyone on my team who is logged in. The app is only for the person logged in and they can only see their own assignments.

 

[mustang7757]

Just got back.

1. Pinned the app to the start screen.

2. Auto optimize was already off. The battery sleep on that app was off but I turned everything off.

3. I turned off auto updates. I went into history and the dates and times don't match up so I don't think it was that.

4. When I went to the play store there was an update for that app so I let it update while I was there. I didn't see a way to turn that off in the Play Store.

5. I had battery saver on which only charges it to 80% I turned that off.

The only setting I wasn't sure about was was some kind of data setting for the app. It was on. I shut it off and it stated some things weren't going to do this or that so I turned it back on.

I tried looking the setting up on my Android tablet but I couldn't find that app which was driving me crazy. I wanted to tell you guys the exact setting. After a few minutes I realized I don't use the app on the tablet I log into to the system. lol I'm losing it. The system is a Gantt. I can see everyone on my team who is logged in. The app is only for the person logged in and they can only see their own assignments.

Is this a work device?

 

[nylaw37]

Is this a work device?

I am using it for work but it's just a phone I bought from Verizon on my own dime and added it to my account.

 

[mustang7757]

I am using it for work but it's just a phone I bought from Verizon on my own dime and added it to my account.

Gotcha , thanks for clarifying that.