I've been using a power usage app designed for the N1 called "PowerTutor" for the past week or so (app link, homepage link).
Ever since I've started using it, I've noticed that two apps are constantly using tons and tons of battery, despite me never using them: Contacts and Messaging. Notice in the screenshots below they have been running 100% of the time since my last reboot and using the most battery, more than any of the apps that I actually use:
Left: Current Power Usage (As of this second).
Right: Total Power Usage (Since reboot).
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These apps never go away. Now, I understand how Android task management works, so the fact that they are running isn't the problem; but the fact that they are using battery constantly seems to be a huge issue, since A) I never use them and yet B) together they have by far the highest power consumption apps on my phone. What the heck??
What is going on here? Does anyone else use PowerTutor?
Interesting find...
Seems like no one dares to comment on this...now I´m curious.
The app must be messaging your contacts in the background...
Or maybe this app drafts a message to one of your contact, then discards it and then drafts the same message to another contact and again discards it and so on....
The tutor in the name suggests that it wants to teach you a lesson... Don't install random apps on your phone and them give it permission to use whatever resources that it wants...
If you using CM ROM so maybe you lock messaging in the memory (CM setting > performance )
I messaged the developer and he responded with this:
It may be related to a bug (it's more of a limitation of the Android API) in PowerTutor. In reality Android gives no way to know what application is currently in the foreground so we have to estimate it using some information they do give us on the priority of each application. Unfortunately the phones I have work with don't have this problem so it's difficult for me to debug. The problem is related to the Messaging and Contacts applications having foreground priority despite not actually being in the foreground.
Try simply filtering out OLED (click on the OLED panel in the application view) to get more meaningful numbers for now.
-Mark
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Interesting...
My question then is, if we were to filter out OLED, wouldn't that mean we'd be missing out on some data (data that is actually valid)?
Though I'm not sure I understand what it means to have an app listed in multiple categories? And what that will do when one category is filtered out.
up 10chr aara
BriEE said:
up 10chr aara
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Hah, thanks for the bump. I am subscribed to this thread but actually uninstalled PowerTutor long ago. It seemed too inaccurate.
Related
SDCard Watcher
Market Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.desaster.sdcardwatcher
Description / Reasoning
Anyone who installs a lot of apps will soon find their SDCard cluttered with strange directories that don't seem to relate to any app you know. You could just remove them all, but how do you know which directories are from apps you are still using, and might contain some important data?
Since the sdcard filesystem lacks ownership info, there's really no easy way of knowing which app to blame. This app is my approach to the problem.
Basically the app lets you monitor any chosen directory for changes, and when a new file or directory is created, it checks which app is currently visible to the user, and saves this information in a database. This way, next time some app leaves an obscure directory rotting on your sdcard, you will know exactly which app to blame.
Why should you care?
Actually, you probably shouldn't. The extra bits of data often don't take any significant space on your memory card. However, it irritates me, and this app gives me a bit more of a sense of control. The XDA forum is probably the best place for me to post this app, since I know there are at least a few other like-minded people here who care about tweaking little things like these
Battery usage
The app's background process uses the kernel's inotify feature to catch changes in the filesystem, and thus uses virtually no processing power, and will not drain your battery.
Reliability
There are essentially two ways for an app to run a background service; as a background service, and as a background service with a notification icon. My app supports both ways, but the default is to run without a notification icon.
I am still unsure if android lets the service run reliably enough without the notification icon, so if you think you're missing file changes, I'd love to hear about it. In any case, the notification icon can be enabled in the settings and should help with the issue (should there be an issue).
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What is this process that I see many apps are leaving behind on exit and has to be manually closed? Why does it exist?
Comon anyone?? As an example where's my water leaves this process behind on exit.
Gambler_3 said:
Comon anyone?? As an example where's my water leaves this process behind on exit.
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In app purchases with Google wallet. It shouldn't be in running apps, just in cached apps so no biggie.
polobunny said:
In app purchases with Google wallet. It shouldn't be in running apps, just in cached apps so no biggie.
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Sadly it's in running apps until I manually kill it. Currently apart from wheres my water it happens with another app "wallpaper changer".
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The process gets triggered every time I open the app.
These 2 are apps from very established devs so it cant be spam.
Hmm not cool. Somebody else might chime in on this, but I can see why you wouldn't want it running if it sticks when you exited the app. :/
Edit: I believe you would need to contact the app coders to fix this issue. Other apps that have billing work fine, so they're likely stopping the service properly unlike WMW and wallpaper changer.
For the reference, WMW has been through numerous patches, so it's not really a matter of spam rather than sometimes shoddy coding.
polobunny said:
Hmm not cool. Somebody else might chime in on this, but I can see why you wouldn't want it running if it sticks when you exited the app. :/
Edit: I believe you would need to contact the app coders to fix this issue. Other apps that have billing work fine, so they're likely stopping the service properly unlike WMW and wallpaper changer.
For the reference, WMW has been through numerous patches, so it's not really a matter of spam rather than sometimes shoddy coding.
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Yes I suppose this is correct I have many other apps as well with in app purchasing options and they dont do this.
Thanks for the input.
If somebody else also knows about this then do chime in.
Bought wheres my perry in the ongoing sale and it does the same thing. :|
The stupid billing service process is that process which are not give desired results. That means which not meet our need.
I'm a developer who distributes free and paid apps on the Play Store, and have recently been seeing accusations that my apps use notification bar advertising.
MY APPS DO NOT USE THIS TRASH AND NEVER WILL.
I actually have avoided advertising altogether, (I'm using the free-lite-version/paid-full-version model).
I want to put some apps on a test phone that actually do use notification bar ads to determine if this is simply random chance or if perhaps these apps are doing more nefarious things like waiting for other APKs to be installed before pushing ads, or waiting until other app-processes are in the foreground before pushing ads. This may be difficult as I believe the push rate is fairly infrequent.
My wild guess is that these apps aren't that evasive, though their design is still to disassociate the advertising from the app that is its source. I imagine they simply delay a week or more before firing the first ad, and probably only do so if the device is asleep.
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Edit: if you do know of any apps that do this, please post links here (on the Play Store or off). I have no idea what apps actually do this, and so far haven't run into any myself.
Thanks for your dedication. I will follow this thread and try to spread the word.
On my Samsung I long press the notification and i can see the app info of the app that actually sent the notification, maybe you can use this to know which apps are messing with yours
Sent from my GT-I8190 using xda app-developers app
nanogi said:
On my Samsung I long press the notification and i can see the app info of the app that actually sent the notification, maybe you can use this to know which apps are messing with yours
Sent from my GT-I8190 using xda app-developers app
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Thanks, but I actually don't have any such apps on my devices at this time...this is all coming from user reviews, so I don't actually know which other apps they have installed that might be firing the push ads.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/mjva1/list_of_known_airpush_enabled_infested_apps/)
BTW, I personally have a Tasker profile I enable/disable on need. It just logs all notifications with the notification's title and app, allowing me to detect airpush apps.
EDI: I remember some game kept sending chinese ads to my notification bar, and if I remember correctly, I had it for quite some time before it started doing so.. and it only started doing so after I installed another app. I'm not entirely certain about it as it happened a few months back, but now that you mention it, it might have been the same scenario.
Remember App Ops? Back in Jelly Bean 4.3, the feature could be accessed by resourceful users to switch on or off permissions for individual apps. By KitKat 4.4.2, the feature was completely hidden from users. Google's explanation was that App Ops was never meant for public consumption - it was devised for internal debugging only. But users had gotten a taste of granular app permission controls and wanted more.
Permission controls would ostensibly live in two places - first, in the app itself, where users will be asked for permission using a series of dialogs. Whether all these dialogs will have to be dealt with immediately before opening the app or if they'll be spread out over the course of use remains to be seen. Evidently, granular permission control will be on for every app automatically, with developers left to decide what the app should do if it is denied permission. This is a potentially worrisome scenario, since apps will need to be updated to degrade gracefully with less and less permissions, but we'll have to wait and see what happens.
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The second home of permissions controls will be in the device's Settings app. It appears users will have access to a very familiar-looking interface with a list of permissions and toggles to switch on or off permissions as they see fit.
This is for users, this is a good thing, after all, allows users to better control the application's behavior. However, for developers, if you are rejected by the user, you may not get the information you want.
How this will impact developers remains to be seen, but with a dev preview of M expected this year, there will hopefully be enough time for developers to tie up any loose ends before Macadamia Nut Cookie hits a wide release.
Agreed, now just waiting for I/O to conclude and Google to throw the switch on the M "Marshmallow" preview and see how it preforms, I personally haven't had the L bugs many have/had but battery life is still a shame, let's hope doze does the trick.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA Free mobile app
The new Google Now stuff has me more excited than anything else... http://techanet.co.uk/google-now-gets-system-wide-integration-and-smart-enhancements/
currently my S20FE 5G is running a rooted stock based custom rom that has a few OneUI 4 elements in it somewhere, no idea what those actually are.
I'm getting some steep battery drain but otherwise I'm quite happy with the rom and want to keep it.
I've got a partial wakelock called VK_WakeLock, it's keeping the phone from sleeping when the screen is off. I searched for a while and can't find a method that would help me find the app that's causing it or even better the specific service or process.
if we know the name of a wakelock is there any terminal commands or apps that could lead me to a package / process name ?
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What's accessing the internet when that happens?
blackhawk said:
What's accessing the internet when that happens?
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I have background data off, I have a firewall that keeps the majority of apps without internet. most of my user apps (which aren't involved) don't do background stuff, so basically I've got no idea right now.
3mel said:
I have background data off, I have a firewall that keeps the majority of apps without internet. most of my user apps (which aren't involved) don't do background stuff, so basically I've got no idea right now.
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Try temporarily disabling Google play Services at night. It's a blood sucker, day and night.
blackhawk said:
Try temporarily disabling Google play Services at night. It's a blood sucker, day and night.
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it hasn't been a battery drain for me previously, if it was an update that brought this effect the internet would be full of posts regarding it. as it stands their are only a handful of search results for VK_WakeLock.
3mel said:
it hasn't been a battery drain for me previously, if it was an update that brought this effect the internet would be full of posts regarding it. as it stands their are only a handful of search results for VK_WakeLock.
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Well you know how I feel about updates...
You can try making sure all system apps are updated or roll them back to their factory load versions.
Clear system cache. Clear system app caches or data.
Find the root cause. You need to ID that apk responsible for your mystery name.
or
Factory reset and hope that gets it.
This is why I don't update. Cleaning up an update mess is time consuming.