Mediaserver battery drain

[MartinMPL]

I've got the dreaded mediaserver battery drain.

The phone is running hot, it's also gone janky and a little less responsive and the battery is being obliterated to the point where it's draining at a rate similar to having the screen always on, also stopping Doze from kicking in.

I've deleted app installs since I noticed the problem (thought Spotify was the culprit but no). I've wiped cache from the bootloader and from Storage menu.

What else should I try before I resort to factory reset?

Thanks...

 

[SpookDroid]

Are you using an SD Card? If so, this might be the reason if the card is damaged or if a corrupted file is there. Same thing if you have a corrupt file (media file, so picture, video, music, etc.) in internal memory.

 

[MartinMPL]

No SD card but suppose I could delete all photos and ringtones and see what happens.

Is there anyway to pinpoint a corrupt file ? App or on PC maybe...

 

[SpookDroid]

CHKDSK on a computer might do the trick, but usually it would show up in your gallery as a 'broken' thumbnail. No such thing for music, though.

 

[Tangy85]

I too have been having this issue just recently.

I've been on Android for around 3 years now and never experienced mediaserver issues before. It's absolutely killing my battery, causing the phone to lag and heat up and general slowdown.

I have tried formatting the sd card but this seems to only fix things temporarily. I hope it may be an issue with the latest update and it's something they'll remedy.

 

[SpookDroid]

I too have been having this issue just recently.

I've been on Android for around 3 years now and never experienced mediaserver issues before. It's absolutely killing my battery, causing the phone to lag and heat up and general slowdown.

I have tried formatting the sd card but this seems to only fix things temporarily. I hope it may be an issue with the latest update and it's something they'll remedy.

If you DO have an SD card, try removing it (or using a different one). Does it solve the problem? If so, even though you're re-formatting your card, maybe the card is either already damaged (and when you start writing data and it gets to the damaged portion it will start giving you issues) or if you use with a PC connection, some files might be corrupt.

 

[Tangy85]

I unmounted it, charged the phone fully, rebooted and still mediaserver was the biggest battery drain.

I do have a number of streaming and DLNA apps and I wonder if this could be part of the problem. The biggest issue is trying to isolate whatever is causing mediaserver to run. I'm starting to think a reset is my best course of action - which sucks. I have my lovely S7E just how I want it!

 

[SpookDroid]

I unmounted it, charged the phone fully, rebooted and still mediaserver was the biggest battery drain.

I do have a number of streaming and DLNA apps and I wonder if this could be part of the problem. The biggest issue is trying to isolate whatever is causing mediaserver to run. I'm starting to think a reset is my best course of action - which sucks. I have my lovely S7E just how I want it!

Before factory-resetting anything, try booting up into Safe Mode. This stops all 3rd-party apps from starting up at boot. So if it IS an app that's causing it, you won't have the battery drain in this mode. If it's a file or a different issue, then you'd have this on this mode as well. In Safe Mode, 3rd party apps can only run if you specifically fire them up, so it lets you try out all apps, one by one, and see which one causes the drain, if any.

 

[Tangy85]

Before factory-resetting anything, try booting up into Safe Mode. This stops all 3rd-party apps from starting up at boot. So if it IS an app that's causing it, you won't have the battery drain in this mode. If it's a file or a different issue, then you'd have this on this mode as well. In Safe Mode, 3rd party apps can only run if you specifically fire them up, so it lets you try out all apps, one by one, and see which one causes the drain, if any.

Well, having done a safe mode reboot, there seemed to be no mediaserver issue. Upon putting my phone back into normal mode, I decided to change the theme.. Just a hunch I had really.. And so far it seems to have solved the issue. I'm highly surprised and it may just be a coincidence so far but the phone is running much smoother also.

I'll update if it comes back, but for now, thanks for your help!

 

[SpookDroid]

Maybe a bad theme file? If you don't mind me asking, could you tell us which theme you had applied? Maybe other users having the same problem are using that one.

Glad it seems to be better for you, though!

 

[MartinMPL]

I'll look into that too. I've just switched from Material Design to Material Dark.

 

[Tangy85]

Nope, it's back! Ha.

It's interesting that it doesn't seem to kick in immediately. This morning after a full recharge it took about 90 minutes before it started up and now it's draining the battery massively.

The only apps I've used in that time are Chrome and whatsapp.

 

[Tangy85]

So with my previous post in mind I went and deleted Chrome Beta and switched to the stock Chrome. It's been 2 hours now and no sign of any mediaserver. I'll update if it changes.

 

[MartinMPL]

Also using Chrome Beta. I'll try it. It has updated in the right time frame.

 

[MartinMPL]

I've uninstalled Chrome Beta and charged my phone back to 100%. No sign of Mediaserver so far.

Unfortunately Chrome is a battery hog in itself, which is the reason I prefer Chrome Beta...

 

[Tangy85]

After 5 hours mediaserver accounts for just 3% of battery usage now. And considering I've played music and downloaded apps today I imagine that's a normal amount.

Personally I'm not yet sold on any mobile browser. Dolphin slowed my phone down a crazy amount and Chrome isn't much better, plus it has limited customisation options.

So anyway, whilst it's not a guarantee that Chrome Beta is solely responsible for the mediaserver bug, it seems to make a massive difference without it.

 

[MartinMPL]

I'm sure in playing media, Mediaserver has some part to play so a small percentage of use should be acceptable. I don't really listen to music on my phone so haven't seen it higher up the list as much.

So far so good and at least the phone is "Dozing" now.

 

[SpookDroid]

If it IS the Chrome Beta app, make sure you send the bug report to Google!

 

[Lucciano Boccolini]

Before factory-resetting anything, try booting up into Safe Mode. This stops all 3rd-party apps from starting up at boot. So if it IS an app that's causing it, you won't have the battery drain in this mode. If it's a file or a different issue, then you'd have this on this mode as well. In Safe Mode, 3rd party apps can only run if you specifically fire them up, so it lets you try out all apps, one by one, and see which one causes the drain, if any.

I have boot into Safe Mode but it steel appear

 

[SpookDroid]

I have boot into Safe Mode but it steel appear

If that's the case then it's a system app causing it. Try clearing cache/data from that app and if not, then try clearing your device's cache from Recovery. If that doesn't do it, then I'm afraid the only option left is to do a factory reset.