Why does "Media" consume so much of my battery??

[dancing-bass]

I also have quite a number of photos - copies of DSLR shots over the last 14 years or so, so it's probably several thousand jpegs, organized by year and month. It's very neat to be able to see any of those photos whenever I want, so I would really hate to have to delete those.

back them up to either Google Drive (15GB free at full resolution, or unlimited photos at 2048px) or DropBox. That way as long as you have a data connection you can show them off, but you don't have to take up storage on your phone (plus it's nice having them backed up somewhere other then your home computer just in case the hard drive takes a dump...

 

[DLCPhototography]

back them up to either Google Drive (15GB free at full resolution, or unlimited photos at 2048px) or DropBox. That way as long as you have a data connection you can show them off, but you don't have to take up storage on your phone (plus it's nice having them backed up somewhere other then your home computer just in case the hard drive takes a dump...

True, but I'd rather have local storage - I'm no longer on an unlimited data plan, so have to watch those bytes!!

I'm actually a semi-professional photographer (it's not my day job, in other words), so have multiple hard copies on hard drives, one at a remote site (my office), etc. - I'm pretty paranoid about backup!

See DLC Photography if you're interested.

For what it's worth, Media is still relatively inactive, and is dropping in percentage as the afternoon proceeds. I'm cautiously optimistic that it was the movies that were consuming all the CPU cycles. The acid test will come tomorrow, after a full battery reset. Will post then, with hopefully good news!

Don

 

[dancing-bass]

I know you haven't done a full charge yet, just checking in to see how things are going. Great photos by the way

 

[DLCPhototography]

I know you haven't done a full charge yet, just checking in to see how things are going. Great photos by the way

Thanks for the kind words about the photos - it's been a blast traveling and shooting!

Media continues to slowly and consistently drop in percentage of power consumption since the movie files were deleted. It's now down to 10%, where it was typically in the 35-45% range, almost all the time. So this is very encouraging, that we finally got to the bottom of it!

Don

 

[Kelly Kearns]

That media issue has popped up here and there since the Gingerbread update. I always do a full reset after an update, always. Those can sometimes fix issues like this. Also I have noticed on my S5 that Google Music seems to start up automatically and it runs in the background and you don't see it running. I only saw it after rooting.

 

[DLCPhototography]

That media issue has popped up here and there since the Gingerbread update. I always do a full reset after an update, always. Those can sometimes fix issues like this. Also I have noticed on my S5 that Google Music seems to start up automatically and it runs in the background and you don't see it running. I only saw it after rooting.

Thanks for the reply.

I've seen the recommendation for a full reset after an update, and I really can't argue with the logic behind it. But I've generally taken the lazy route, and so far haven't run into major problems. The thought of reinstalling, reconfiguring everything, is just not appealing!

In this particular case, the problem pre-dated the recent 4.4.4 update, and it seems like I've finally pinpointed the cause in one or more of the movie files that were on my MicroSD card. I guess my next step would be recopying the movies one by one, and see specifically whether it's a particular file, or file extension, that triggered the problem.

But still so far so good - Media has drifted down now to around 8% as the day has progressed. Will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow with a full battery charge and stats reset.

 

[Kelly Kearns]

Thanks for the reply.

I've seen the recommendation for a full reset after an update, and I really can't argue with the logic behind it. But I've generally taken the lazy route, and so far haven't run into major problems. The thought of reinstalling, reconfiguring everything, is just not appealing!

In this particular case, the problem pre-dated the recent 4.4.4 update, and it seems like I've finally pinpointed the cause in one or more of the movie files that were on my MicroSD card. I guess my next step would be recopying the movies one by one, and see specifically whether it's a particular file, or file extension, that triggered the problem.

But still so far so good - Media has drifted down now to around 8% as the day has progressed. Will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow with a full battery charge and stats reset.

I learned long ago, back up and reset in recovery mode before update, then update, clear cache from recovery mode and reset again while in recovery mode. Then I restore everything from Kies. It is just less hassle in the long run. I learned long ago, when Gingerbread came out, that was the best route to do. It just makes everything run better.

 

[DLCPhototography]

Well, mixed news to report.

Soon after starting my phone, Media was back up to #1, at around 34% of battery usage. As the day has progressed, it has gradually been drifting down, and now stands at 18.5%.

I checked, and the photos I alluded to before number around 20,000 files. I'm thinking that Media scans the MicroSD card when it's first started up, and because of the large number of files, and the 25 or so gb total disk space to look through, it's going to be quite busy, and would account for the high CPU usage and battery percent when it starts in the morning. Once the task is completed, there's much less activity, and gradually drifts down in usage.

Getting rid of the movie files may have helped, in that something there was occupying it throughout the day, so at least that task has been eliminated.

The next thing I'm going to try is to use a different MicroSD Card. I have another one in my Asus Tablet (same Sandisk brand and type), and will put the same files on it, and see if the phone behaves any differently. Some threads have suggested that a problem with the card itself could account for some of the problem, so I at least want to test it out.

I guess I could at least temporarily delete the photos, and perhaps even music, to minimize the number and size of files on the card - theoretically, if my thinking is right, Media should decrease both on restart, as well as during the day.

Frustrating...

And once Media drops to #2, Android System occupies #1, at about 31%. I'm not sure if this is normal, but there are dozens and dozens of processes attached to this, so figuring out if there's something misbehaving here would be exceptionally difficult.

 

[kctony]

Just a thought, but have you considered backing up your pics, movies and music to a cloud storage service? I had a similar problem which I rid myself of by doing the aforementioned. I've freed up space on my SD card, reduced the media usage and now simply look at edit and share pics using drop box carousel. To be quite honest, the carousel extention is far more user friendly than the stock gallery. Given the volume of files you have you're going to need to set aside a weekend to allow for uploading....

Its actually harder than it appears. I make it look easy.

 

[DLCPhototography]

Just a thought, but have you considered backing up your pics, movies and music to a cloud storage service? I had a similar problem which I rid myself of by doing the aforementioned. I've freed up space on my SD card, reduced the media usage and now simply look at edit and share pics using drop box carousel. To be quite honest, the carousel extention is far more user friendly than the stock gallery. Given the volume of files you have you're going to need to set aside a weekend to allow for uploading....

Its actually harder than it appears. I make it look easy.

Thanks for the suggestion, but without an unlimited data plan, this is not a practical solution for me. I'd easily blow through my monthly data if I were to seriously access any of that stuff. I typically select phones that allow use of a MicroSD card, to give me the ability to bring with me any number of photos, music, video. Plus I'm not dependent on having a decent internet connection to access any of it.

But I do appreciate the thought. I'm starting to consider doing a factory reset, although I'm concerned I'd spend hours doing all of that, and end up right back where I am right now.

 

[Kelly Kearns]

Thanks for the suggestion, but without an unlimited data plan, this is not a practical solution for me. I'd easily blow through my monthly data if I were to seriously access any of that stuff. I typically select phones that allow use of a MicroSD card, to give me the ability to bring with me any number of photos, music, video. Plus I'm not dependent on having a decent internet connection to access any of it.

But I do appreciate the thought. I'm starting to consider doing a factory reset, although I'm concerned I'd spend hours doing all of that, and end up right back where I am right now.

I don't know about the above service, but with most cloud services, you can choose to only sync while on WiFi so it won't use data to move things to the cloud.

 

[kctony]

Yep, I also have limited data and choose to only upload when connected to wifi. In the interim any photos I take remain on the SD card until I upload then I remove it from my card. If it's a special photo I move it to my portable storage drive. Just trying to spare you the agony of a factory reset.

Its actually harder than it appears. I make it look easy.

 

[DLCPhototography]

Cloud storage will work for some, in some situations, but I want my photo collection on my phone, so I can access them at any time, any place, and not have to worry about either having a data connection, or using up data. I mean, that's the whole point of having a large MicroSD Card. Same with music. The movies I can move on there if/when I need to travel, so it's not a big deal to leave those off the card.

As expected, Media's Battery Percentage continues to drop as the day goes on. Now down to around 12%. And as pointed out above, "Android System" has reared its ugly head, now consuming 32.7% of the battery today. I've installed CPU Memory Monitor, to try and figure out which specific app or process is responsible for that, but so far, the only thing it's identifying is "Fused Locations." Trying to find out just what that is, what's using it, and how to stop its battery use without sacrificing basic smartphone functionality.

I know some people will turn off Gmail, Syncing of Calendar, Email, Contacts; will turn off GPS, and many other functions, not use an SD card at all, in order to maximize battery life. For many this might work, but for me, it would undermine why I use a smartphone to begin with. I'd rather deal with poorer battery performance and use the device as desired, than have it last 3 days and not provide the functionality I want.

Factory Reset, and a slow reinstallation of applications, to see which might be the culprit, might be necessary to pinpoint where the problem is. The question I have to answer for myself is whether it's worth the hassle. I can still make it through the day most of the time, with reasonably heavy use, without need for a recharge, so it's not crucial that I get this figured out. I was hoping to find a quick fix, or simple tweaking of settings, to make a sizable impact on battery life, but it's looking less and less like that will be the case.

 

[DLCPhototography]

Thought I'd update this thread. Some progress.

Media battery consumption has been tamed. I think this is mostly from deleting the movie files. Now on start-up, it's busy for a while, but gradually drops down as the day goes on, as expected. Now only at about 10%. Probably from 20,000 photos needing to be inventoried daily, but as above, I don't want to delete these.

But as alluded to above, "Android System" is now the problem. Typically consumes 30-40% of the battery. Process seems to be identified as "Fused Location" as best I can determine. This seems to be a GPS related matter. I changed my Location from "Fine" to "GPS only." This may have helped some, but it's still way higher than I think it should be.

The other thing that has now reared up is that "Clock" (com.sec.android.app.clockpackage) is now up to around 10-14%. I have no alarms set. I also have "Nightclock" app installed, although I only use it when on vacation. It shows as consuming 6% or so. Don't know if these are connected.

I'm getting closer to considering a Factory Reset, but would hate to go through all that hassle, and have the problem come back.

Any other thoughts appreciated.

 

[DLCPhototography]

This should be my final post on this thread. I have resolved my problem.

What it was not:

It was not a MicroSD Card Format issue. I tried various options, formatting in or out of the phone, transferring files directly to the phone via USB, or to the card directly in a card reader. No change.

It did not require a Factory Reset to fix. I always prefer to find the specific problem if possible, rather than to take a bulldozer approach. Kind of like the advice given from Tech Support for computer problems: rather than taking their time to pinpoint the problem, they'll tell you to reformat your Hard Drive.

The presence of 20,000 Jpegs on the MicroSD card. These are still there, and my battery usage is much better.

What it was:

Media occupied a higher percentage of battery usage because of the presence of more than a dozen movies (avi, mk4 and mp4 formats). Once these were deleted, Media ceased dominating battery usage through the day. Media is high when I first start the phone, as it has to inventory the MicroSD card, with those 20,000 photos, but this drifts down as the day goes on to reasonable levels.

I didn't determine whether it was a particular file, or a particular file format, the number and size of the movies, etc. I can figure that out down the road if/when I need to put some movies back on there. I generally use an Asus tablet for this anyway.

Once Media was tamed, Android System took over. I'm not sure exactly which of these things did the trick, but doing this resolved the problem for me:

Deleted a Nightclock App: I don't know what the deal was here, but this, and Clock, were eating up a lot of battery.
Tweaked some settings in my Elecont Weather App, to check location and weather less frequently.
Changed Google Location settings to "GPS only."
I also turned off some bloatware, but don't think this was a major factor.

The bottom line is that I get the battery performance from my Note 3 that I think I should. It has been stable for several days now. For example, yesterday I had:

14 hours, 40 minutes on battery, with 32% left at the end of the day.
This included 1 hour and 20 minutes of Google Maps Navigation (perhaps one of the most demanding on battery, as it uses GPS, Screen, and Data), 2 fairly lengthy phone calls, including Bluetooth use, and 2 1/2 hours of Screen time. Not overly intensive use, but more than average for me.
My battery percentages at the end of the day showed:

Maps 21%
Screen 18%
Android System 14%
Android OS 9%
Media 7%
Voice Calls 7%

So I'm happy with where I am. These stats are by no means record breaking. But on the other hand, I leave WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and Data on all the time, for convenience, and don't take any other specific measures to extend battery life.

Hopefully this thread will be of use to others down the road. Appreciate the help here.

Don

 

[kctony]

This should be my final post on this thread. I have resolved my problem.

What it was not:

It was not a MicroSD Card Format issue. I tried various options, formatting in or out of the phone, transferring files directly to the phone via USB, or to the card directly in a card reader. No change.

It did not require a Factory Reset to fix. I always prefer to find the specific problem if possible, rather than to take a bulldozer approach. Kind of like the advice given from Tech Support for computer problems: rather than taking their time to pinpoint the problem, they'll tell you to reformat your Hard Drive.

The presence of 20,000 Jpegs on the MicroSD card. These are still there, and my battery usage is much better.

What it was:

Media occupied a higher percentage of battery usage because of the presence of more than a dozen movies (avi, mk4 and mp4 formats). Once these were deleted, Media ceased dominating battery usage through the day. Media is high when I first start the phone, as it has to inventory the MicroSD card, with those 20,000 photos, but this drifts down as the day goes on to reasonable levels.

I didn't determine whether it was a particular file, or a particular file format, the number and size of the movies, etc. I can figure that out down the road if/when I need to put some movies back on there. I generally use an Asus tablet for this anyway.

Once Media was tamed, Android System took over. I'm not sure exactly which of these things did the trick, but doing this resolved the problem for me:

Deleted a Nightclock App: I don't know what the deal was here, but this, and Clock, were eating up a lot of battery.
Tweaked some settings in my Elecont Weather App, to check location and weather less frequently.
Changed Google Location settings to "GPS only."
I also turned off some bloatware, but don't think this was a major factor.

The bottom line is that I get the battery performance from my Note 3 that I think I should. It has been stable for several days now. For example, yesterday I had:

14 hours, 40 minutes on battery, with 32% left at the end of the day.
This included 1 hour and 20 minutes of Google Maps Navigation (perhaps one of the most demanding on battery, as it uses GPS, Screen, and Data), 2 fairly lengthy phone calls, including Bluetooth use, and 2 1/2 hours of Screen time. Not overly intensive use, but more than average for me.
My battery percentages at the end of the day showed:

Maps 21%
Screen 18%
Android System 14%
Android OS 9%
Media 7%
Voice Calls 7%

So I'm happy with where I am. These stats are by no means record breaking. But on the other hand, I leave WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and Data on all the time, for convenience, and don't take any other specific measures to extend battery life.

Hopefully this thread will be of use to others down the road. Appreciate the help here.

Don

Glad to hear all is well.

Its actually harder than it appears. I make it look easy.

 

[Lefty Drummer]

Also glad you got things straightened out. As I've stated before in various forums (across several devices), I'm no expert, but I feel strongly that many problems people have with their phones (in particular battery issues), are not the phone's fault (hardware or software) as many might suggest (not to say that all phones are perfect, there are definitely lemons out there, and OS updates with bugs that should never have been let into the wild!) . It's usually some sort of rogue app, settings out of wack, or some other anamoly (like your movies for some reason). Kudos to you for seeing it through without a reset, certainly takes time and patience, things that tend to be in short supply these days.
On my SD card, total available space is 29.4gig, with just over 4 gig free. 1479 pics currently, 1 movie (2.5 hour), half a dozen YouTube videos (between 4 and 6 minutes in length each), about 5 home videos (most around 2 to 3 minutes long) and over 3800 songs. I've never seen Media come up in the battery usage list. I turn off GPS when stationary, either at home or work. My car dock automatically shuts off wifi when I plug the phone in, and turns Bluetooth on in the dock, off outside the dock. Other than that, I also don't take any extra measures to extend battery life.

 

[DLCPhototography]

Also glad you got things straightened out. As I've stated before in various forums (across several devices), I'm no expert, but I feel strongly that many problems people have with their phones (in particular battery issues), are not the phone's fault (hardware or software) as many might suggest (not to say that all phones are perfect, there are definitely lemons out there, and OS updates with bugs that should never have been let into the wild!) . It's usually some sort of rogue app, settings out of wack, or some other anamoly (like your movies for some reason). Kudos to you for seeing it through without a reset, certainly takes time and patience, things that tend to be in short supply these days.
On my SD card, total available space is 29.4gig, with just over 4 gig free. 1479 pics currently, 1 movie (2.5 hour), half a dozen YouTube videos (between 4 and 6 minutes in length each), about 5 home videos (most around 2 to 3 minutes long) and over 3800 songs. I've never seen Media come up in the battery usage list. I turn off GPS when stationary, either at home or work. My car dock automatically shuts off wifi when I plug the phone in, and turns Bluetooth on in the dock, off outside the dock. Other than that, I also don't take any extra measures to extend battery life.

Thanks for the reply.

Interesting that Media doesn't even show up for you. Is yours also a Verizon Note 3? Stock, unrooted? Brand of MicroSD card?

I have an Asus Infinity Tablet, with a Sandisk 64gb MicroSD card in the Tablet, and another one in the attached keyboard. I also have quite a few movies (the same ones, in fact), and I don't think Media shows up there either. It could be phone specific, or a phone-card brand combination, or who knows what. I'm thinking that it's the 20,000 photos on my card that have to be inventoried that drives it up initially, but I could be wrong. I don't have those on my Tablet, for what it's worth.

I'm guessing that one way or the other, the phone has to survey or inventory files on the MicroSD Card periodically, in order to determine if there is anything new or different there. If it has to go through 20,000+ files each time, that's got to take up some CPU cycles. I have the default Gallery installed, but actually use QuickPic to actually view my files, and made it the default image viewer. Perhaps that is introducing some quirk as well.

But regardless, thanks for the input, and am pretty pleased with the battery performance (until something else comes along to screw it up!)

Don

 

[Lefty Drummer]

Thanks for the reply.

Interesting that Media doesn't even show up for you. Is yours also a Verizon Note 3? Stock, unrooted? Brand of MicroSD card?

I have an Asus Infinity Tablet, with a Sandisk 64gb MicroSD card in the Tablet, and another one in the attached keyboard. I also have quite a few movies (the same ones, in fact), and I don't think Media shows up there either. It could be phone specific, or a phone-card brand combination, or who knows what. I'm thinking that it's the 20,000 photos on my card that have to be inventoried that drives it up initially, but I could be wrong. I don't have those on my Tablet, for what it's worth.

I'm guessing that one way or the other, the phone has to survey or inventory files on the MicroSD Card periodically, in order to determine if there is anything new or different there. If it has to go through 20,000+ files each time, that's got to take up some CPU cycles. I have the default Gallery installed, but actually use QuickPic to actually view my files, and made it the default image viewer. Perhaps that is introducing some quirk as well.

But regardless, thanks for the input, and am pretty pleased with the battery performance (until something else comes along to screw it up!)

Don

I can't crack this thing open at the moment to check SD card brand (I do remember it was one Jerry H. recommended when it was on sale cheap on Amazon for a day, Sony maybe?), but I am 100% stock unrooted on the latest 4.4.4 version on a Verizon Note 3. Yep, I cannot recall ever seeing Media show up in the battery list.

 

[DLCPhototography]

A further update here, for the sake of anybody who is having problems with excessive Media CPU/Battery consumption, who might find this by searching.

My battery performance and Media CPU/Battery consumption deteriorated, returning to the state which led to my starting this thread, for reasons not completely apparent to me. I did not recopy the movie files to the SD card, so that's not it. I did copy some more of my DSLR photos to the SD card, so perhaps that's what triggered it.

The solution, fortunately, was relatively straight-forward. I went to Settings...Application Manager...All...Media Storage. I then tapped "Clear cache" and "Clear data", then "Force Stop" and rebooted the phone. This seemed to reset this function, and Media then started dropping in the rankings over the next battery cycle. For my phone, anyway, this seems to do the trick, and I suspect, the Movie files had nothing to do with it. I do remember trying this operation before, around the same time I removed those files from my card, so ended up drawing the wrong conclusion about what in fact fixed it.

I found this page, which contains the instructions for this, as well as other options to try when Media is consuming too much in terms of CPU or Battery:

Fix Android Media server scanner SD card CPU, Battery drain

It isn't clear why this process gets screwed up, with Media Scanning of my SD Card apparently getting out of control. Perhaps it's some quirk of the interaction between my phone, and the particular brand/type of MicroSD card I have. But that's just a guess. It seems like I may just need to clear the Media Storage app/process periodically, whenever it gets funky.