New Speed Charge/Battery Status Lock Screen with annoying ads "just appeared" on GN4

[Vonzy]

About this program Z-Camera:

******Z Camera: Best App of 2015 on Google Play in 75 countries!******
Whenever, wherever, snap! Z Camera is freaky fast!

In the fine print:
Ads will be shown in certain scenes in our app. For more information, please visit https://m.facebook.com/ads/ad_choices.

 

[muzzy996]

Developers gotta get paid somehow so this is just one way to do it. Personally I avoid apps that are ad based models unless they have a paid option that eliminates the ads. The song that says that the best things in life are free doesn't necessarily apply to purely ad based applications as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Mairzy Doats]

I came across this thread because my phone started doing the very same thing. The screen shows a message about how long it will take to charge. Occasionally an ad but not usually. The settings 'more' link at the top just dismisses the screen. I tried several malware tools and they both compIained about SeekDroid, which I guess I understand, but I know that's okay. One flagged a Go Launcher theme, but removing that did not fix it.

So I started looking at what had been installed recently - deleted one rewards app, no luck. I worked backward until I noticed Go Launcher - and saw that it had an update on March 4th.

I uninstalled - somehow I had both Z and EX, and they were paid versions. The screen is now gone. Booooooo to the Go Launcher people.

OK, I finally figured out why it's behaving this way: there is a new setting under Advanced, called 'Quick Charging'. I don't know what, if anything, this actually does, beyond setting up that ***obnxious*** fake lock screen.

I do have a screenshot, but I can't figure out how to attach it via the mobile page.

 

[juliesdroidsync]

Yes, if memory serves, that's about what my screen looked like... Do you use GoSMS text messaging? The last upgrade I did "lost the connection" to the fact that I had PAID for this app...

 

[Alvin Au]

may be a SOLUTION!

hi everyone, i come across the same situation as you guys experienced. i deleted the APP " 頂尖開發人員 GO输入法国际版" (which is a keyboard input app for chinese. or you can find here https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...s/details?id=com.jb.gokeyboard&token=_S0_vI5t). after 5 hours until now, it seems that it is work !

i think " 頂尖開發人員 GO输入法国际版" must deal with some ad-selling unit to show the ad, so" 頂尖開發人員 GO输入法国际版"may not be the only APP which brings the problem. I suggest u guys to delete the APP which has share the same ad-system with " 頂尖開發人員 GO输入法国际版" (if you guys can find it out) or you guys should try deleting some APP which always lead to the ad problem. Also, since i downloaded and used " 頂尖開發人員 GO输入法国际版" for a long time, i dont think u guys should just focus on those APP that u downloaded recently.

 

[Tonypal]

Are these really solutions as I do not have the programs you mention, yet yesterday this started and I have not installed an app in weeks. I deleted all apps that I really do not need and still have the problem. It must have some timed delayed built into some app. Maybe set to so many days from installation? I tried the Stopbadap, Avast, and other cleaners, with no luck. If someone finds out the solution please post the step by step to get rid of this. obviously if there are a lot of people posting here, hundreds of thousands of people must have this problem!

Was this where you turned it off? It seemed to work for me, for now.... will check throughout the day.....been an hour, no lock screen ads.

 

[Tonypal]

Forget that solution, just came back, very frustrated as I read in this thread they even did resets and it came back.

another possible solution?
(yes, this is really bothering me, lol)

 

[Vonzy]

Some days ago I removed Z Camera that was giving me this nasty thing:


On every app in Google Play its possible to make a report to Google, I did, and Z Camera is now removed from Google Play!!

Zero Team still got some apps there: https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...re/apps/developer?id=Zero+Team&token=bwMwNgTd

PLEASE!
If you are finding some program that is malware or don't behave as it should
-> REPORT TO GOOGLE!
So we can get rid of all crappy apps!

 

[Tonypal]

I did not have that app, so it must be in different apps as well. I was able to swipe the top of the annoying lock screen and turn it off....

 

[Vonzy]

They seem to be in several apps and are very often hard to find, but when you find the app
- REPORT IT TO GOOGLE,
and 1.000's of people will get a better life!

 

[Chris Winter1]

Dont just Stop boost charge.

You also need to un-install Touch Pal.

That was the nasty for me.

Touch Pal is a third party keyboard app but it seems that it sits there downloading more and more Touchpal versions.

I've only had my phone for 2 days (ZTE Razor V Plus) and Touch Pal was installed out of the box.

Last night it "updated" and suddenly I had 2 Touch Pal apps (keeping in mind I hadn't even used Touch Pal and had the phone set to default keyboard)

After the update, plugged the phone in to charge and BOOM, Boost Charge Screen with ads.

After some playing around I disabled it as you did, but then I removed Touch Pal (both versions) and the issue has not returned.

I'm reporting this issue to ZTE as that's a very bad look to be installing Adware as core apps lol.

Great phone other than that (he says on day 2).

 

[Vonzy]

Don't forget to report this directly to Google !

 

[bsoplinger]

It has to be part of some ad module a number of different 'brands' of apps are using. I have none of the above mentioned apps yet I too have this screen which for me showed up last evening, March 30th.

Once I figure out which app is using this malware type ad module I shall report the app to Google. If enough app developers get their app flagged someone will blow the whistle and identify the ad module behind this which hopefully will be enough to kill it.

 

[Mighty]

Thanks to everyone who has provided clues in this thread.

I had Quick Pic, a Cheetah Mobile gallery alternative. I removed that, but still saw the Quick Charge ad page.

I've been using Go Launcher Z for years. Based on a clue here, looked in there. Under Advanced settings is a Quick Charge switch. Turned that off, and it appears to be gone.

I think I paid for Go Launcher a long time ago. But, I don't see any indication one way or the other.

There is a note in the "What's New" that v5.02 fixes a "didn't remove ads" bug. That's a typo, because I have v2.05. It looks like the Play Store has v2.1, but it's not offering to update on my phone, right now.

Personally, I don't mind ad-supported software as long as the ads are restricted to the actual app itself. Any pop-up ad over any other app, I consider to be adware. Popping up a swipe lock screen counts as adware, to me. I've become very comfortable with Go Launcher. But, this form of adware is going to make me re-think that choice.

Drake Christensen

 

[Bradley Bahler]

I had two new battery lockscreen problems. Try this. When the lockscreen is displaying, at the bottom of the screen hit the android icon for recent apps, (on my Nexus 5x it's a square on the right). The lockscreen should minimize showing the app it is associated with. Either uninstall the app or check it's settings to disable the battery charging lockscreen. The two apps that were secretly launching my lockscreens were Next Launcher Lite and Kitty Play wallpapers.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[mikejbrady]

Absolutely correct for that screen shot: TouchPal.

To disable:
Settings > Language & Input > TouchPal
Menu (upper left) > Settings > Boost Charge (very bottom)

It's a fantastic keyboard, but the ads are killing me. They get worse with every release. Premium? $5/year is steep. I'd do $5 once or maybe $2/year. Feels silly to write that, but if every app and useful site was $5/year, ouch. Thinking it may be time to look at the current crop of options.

 

[tommyp86]

I had the same lock screen randomly appear, Super Battery by KingoApp was the cause of mine. Some apus crap got in there


heres the apus packages I found in the androidmanifest:
com.apusapps.charging
com.apusapps.battery.ChargingActivity
com.apusapps.battery.ChargeFastGuideActivity
com.apusapps.battery.ChargingCoreService

 

[Traumtanzer]

Spent forever trying to track this down, want to thank everyone who's contributed to this thread as the information here helped a great deal.

To clarify, my issue was with Speed Charger, the one with the liquid level display. I finally tracked this back to Go Weather Ex, a program that I'd bought quite a while back. The charger lock screen suddenly appeared today, and appeared on both my phones, a V10, and an S7 Edge (personal and work phones), so I knew it wasn't manufacturer specific and must have been related to some app installed in both places. The way I stumbled onto which app was to turn off the unlock screen on my S7, then hold the app history button, which popped up a brief message that Go Weather Ex didn't support split screen viewing. I verified this by uninstalling Go Weather Ex, verifying that the Speed Charger screen was gone, then reinstalling Go Weather Ex to verify that it was back. As has been mentioned, this was a purchased program that didn't detect that it was purchased when reinstalled, which caused the ads on the lock screen overlay, but verifying premium only took away the ads from the lock screen, not the screen itself. I could find no reference to the speed charger screen or function in the Go Weather Ex menus.

This behavior concerns me on several levels.. A program that interferes with the function of a device and will not identify it's origin is a malware program to me, and it seems like Go has gone out of it's way to hide where this screen is coming from. The slide to unlock on top of whatever actual lock on the phone seems to be a gimick to make sure you have to look at the ads and/or accidentally click on one while you're trying to get your phone to work. On top of that, I find it hard to believe that a program working from the app level is going to have any effect on low level fast charging on newer devices, I could be wrong, of course, but it smacks of snake-oil system cleaners of the PC world that say they are making your system run faster, but do nothing more than display messages that your system is running faster.

This is definitely a hit on the Go team's reputation for me. I hope that this will help someone else track down this annoying lock screen.

 

[Mighty]

I sent feedback to Go, telling them that I regard those ads as adware, and that I would no longer recommend their program, until they removed that ad system. And, that they should review whatever process they used to decide to do that, and change it, so that they don't do anything like that, again.

 

[brisqueen]

I would check any apps with themes or wallpapers. I had the same problem. KittyPlay was the culprit. Checking your running apps will allow you to find the problem, good luck.