Note 3 never sleeps, battery drains

[grumbledook]

Greetings,
My new (purchased in May) Note 3 never goes to sleep, with the result that I get at most 3 days of true standby time, sometimes less than 2.
It is rooted, but otherwise unaltered stock 4.3 for SM-N900W8.
I’ve tried just about every suggestion I’ve seen in this and several other forums to identify the culprit(s).

• Uninstalled “Avast Mobile Security”. Ran without it for 2 days. Still not sleeping.
• Reinstalled AMS. (From this point onward, this list is cumulative.)
• Froze (using Android Tuner) many of my apps, but not AMS, AT and Gsam Battery Monitor.
• Froze (using Android Tuner) Google Play Store, Google Play Services and Google Services Framework.
• Disabled (using Settings | Applications) BlurbCheckout, Chrome, Dropbox, Google Calendar Sync, Google Contacts Sync, Google+, Google Play Music, Knox Notification Manager, PEN.UP, S Voice, Samsung WatchON and SNS. (I had never used any of these anyway.)
• Hibernated (using Greenify) **all** my other apps, including Amazon Store and K9-mail.
• All communications (3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC) are shut off.
• Auto Brightness, SmartStay, AirGestures are deactivated. (AirView is On.)
• Screen is Off all the time except for 41m32s of the period.

Latest result with this setup: System was held awake for 18h45m of the 20h period.

I don’t know how to interpret the dump of “alarm” (attached). Nothing seems to add up to hours of wake time. The “Top Alarms” section starts with 588 alarms (but zero wakeups) from android.intent.action.TIME_TICK. Is that relevant? If so, how do I find the app or service that requested those TIME_TICK?

“App Sucker” section of Gsam Battery Monitor is not much more helpful. It shows that most of the awake time was caused by “Android System” and “Kernel (Android OS)”, and within those I can see a list of “Wakelock Detail”: TimaService, AlarmManager, and so on. How is that supposed to help me find the rogue app(s)?

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[anon8380037]

Nope. I don't understand any of that. Someone will.
If you posted the regular battery usage shots, inc screen time and history details, plus the main GSam screens I could conpare better.
18 hours, with 4-6 hours screen time on JB is fine.
2-3 days with little screen time I managed one quiet weekend.

 

[jpr]

To the OP. I don't mean this as an insult - I'm genuinely trying to help you - so I need to say that it's very clear from your post that you really don't know what you are doing. You also don't understand the tools you are using or how to even read your battery stats or what information you should be looking at.

I'm telling you this because the best thing you can do is to do a factory reset, flash completely back to stock and not do any of the things you did above. If you really want to root and use Greenify and Android Tuner and freeze and hibernate apps, etc, then do a lot of research and educate yourself first. Also learn what wakelocks are and how to read GSam or other battery stats properly.

But first use your phone stock, as is, without any freezing, hibernating, task killing, and without doing anything that requires root access to accomplish. You can turn off sync for things you don't need and uninstall or disable apps you don't use, and go through all your settings to make sure nothing unnecessary, like wifi-scanning, is running in the background as long as none of that requires root to do so.

I would also backup and then re-format your SD Card if you are using one or start off without it in the phone at all. Once you have your phone running that way without problems, then one by one add apps - not greenify, android tuner, task killers type apps and not root apps. GSam is fine to install. I would even avoid Avast at first. When you do add avast, make sure you go through all settings and disable anything unnecessary like network monitoring or very frequent scans.

Once you have the other apps on your phone that you want to use and it is working properly with normal battery use, then IF you have taken the time to educate yourself on the things you did before, you can try rooting again and conservatively using root tools. Do one thing at a time to see what affect it has on your phone. You may find you are happier stock, unrooted after all. Root can be useful but you need to know how to use it.

 

[grumbledook]

Thanks for your reply, jpr.

I think you may have made incorrect assumptions from what I didn’t say. For example, because I mentioned that the list of things I tried was cumulative, you may have presumed that I did it all at once. That is not the case.

It’s true that I don’t know how to interpret the output of some tools; I stated it clearly as part of my questions. And I know that many people are in the same situation. I chose to start my one and only thread here and am still hoping that someone might help. If that’s not what this forum is for, then my mistake was in that choice.

All firewalls require su. And running an Internet-enabled device without a firewall is a non-starter for me. That’s why Avast was the first thing I installed. I did go through all its settings (I had practically memorized its user guide before I even bought the phone) and disabled everything that could be disabled except the firewall.

In fact, I always go through all the settings of all the apps I install (I’ve been doing it that way since the days of Windows 3.1), but I haven’t installed many apps on this device yet, nor did I activate any kind of sync. So there is really not much left to disable or deactivate.

I don’t “want to root and use Greenify and Android Tuner and freeze and hibernate apps, etc.” I did those things as a last resort, following recommendations in various forums, addressed to other people who were describing the exact same problem. Some of those recommendations did help the person they were addressed to. So I don’t understand why you would portray my trying those remedies and courses of investigation as a completely asinine idea.

I’ve spent a lot of hours on this issue over the past two months and what I gathered boils down to this simple fact: Wakelocks are likely to be the cause when battery performance is unsatisfactory. From there, my bottom line is: Not being able to directly identify the app or service that is keeping the device awake (especially through an app that purports to do exactly that, like WLD or GSam BM) is not normal.

Also, the mere presence of supersu or Android Tuner is not an excuse for abhorrent behavior from the OS. (I’ve used supersu to grant su status to only 4 apps: Avast, Android Tuner, Greenify and MyProfiles. I’ve used Android Tuner only to consult settings and logs; I haven’t used it to apply any tweaks… yet.)

If I’m dead wrong about all that, then there is no hope, because the recipe you are proposing would take months. It would probably push me to rather surrender and do what I thought I would never do: Get an iPhone instead.

 

[jim_h#AC]

If I’m dead wrong about all that, then there is no hope, because the recipe you are proposing would take months.

I have to disagree with you there.

What jpr wrote was good advice, and from past experience, sometimes it's the only way you can fix weird issues like yours. A factory reset is quick and easy and reinstalling apps one by one with some testing needn't take long at all. It certainly doesn't take months. I've done exactly what jpr suggested in an afternoon and believe me, when it works it is time well spent to relieve the stress of having the problems you've encountered.

The vast majority of N3 owners don't have the problems you do. Which would suggest one of two things to me. Either you have faulty hardware. Or, you have some combination of config and/or software installation that is causing the strange behaviour. Being methodical and following the advice from jpr should help diagnose this.

Just saying

 

[ShaggyKids]

I found that turning off Location unless I really need it stopped my battery drain.

 

[anon8380037]

Yup. Sorry about my 2nd dismissive post OP - now removed.
@jim_h#AC caught the jist of the issue better for me.

I would have given up a lot earlier on trying all that to rectify a problem.

Give the forums another go and you may try a different approach to solving it.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Golfdriver97]

I would like to see the standard battery stat screenshots, please

Signed, an M8, Liquidsmooth, and the AC Forums App

 

[grumbledook]

It was too late for capturing more battery stats. I had already done the factory reset.

I have been reinstalling apps one at a time, as prescribed, still running with all connections and all sync services turned off, and, for over 4 days, it was staying asleep more than 99% of the time, using less than 1% of battery capacity per 12-hour period. (I install one app in the morning and check it again in the evening. If it stayed asleep all that time, I install another one and check it the next morning.)

So, yesterday, when it showed that it had stayed awake all day, it appeared that I had found the culprit: Business Calendar Pro (Appgenix Software) v1.5.1. That's the one I had reinstalled yesterday morning and it was one of the first ones I had originally installed.

However, this time, it wasn't "Android System" and "Kernel" that were keeping it awake; It was "Google Account Manager", which I had never seen before. (In the standard battery stats, it shows as "Google Services", within which are various packages, including "Account Manager".)

After uninstalling Business Calendar, it was still being kept awake, but not by "Google Account Manager"; It was "Google Services Framework".

After rebooting, it stays asleep more than 99% of the time, but the discharge rate of the battery is not as low as it was a couple of days ago.

I guess I'll have to settle for this.

It's disheartening to find out that Android turns out to be so redolent of the Windows world.