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Please advise. Captivate issues galore...

Hi all. I just got a Captivate after using Mattc on my HD2 and I used an Aria for a couple weeks as well. I used Mattc on the HD2 for a couple months and really liked it. I understood it was running from the SD and lived with the other issues like slow wake up and occasional goofiness.
So when I got my Captivate I was thinking, wow, I'll have one of(if not the) fastest Android phone on it's native hardware. Everything should rock. I should be blown away... Not.
HELP!
The brightness settings. WTF! Why did they implement like 10 ways the brightness screws with your day. On my HD2 w/Mattc I set the brightness in settings to where I wanted and it stayed. Forever. Also when it hits 10% it kicks the brightness all the way down. 10%? Com on maybe 5%. But what is worse is when it does kick it down I kick it back up but it dims again at every percent it goes down. ANNOYING. Please let me control my phone... Oh and don't get me started on the Browser brightness. Huh? Even with the browser brightness set at max it's still dimmer than my regular brightness setting. Noticably. I only keep my brightness at like 75-80% too.
Also what the hell is with the lame Calendar notification settings? Are there any?
My question is this. Is there any ROM out there that will strip all that Samsung ideology and give me a stock Android experience. Especially without the brightness issues. Why do I need to slide my notification bar to change brightness? All it does for me is just cause my brightness to vary accidentally when I don't want it to.
Why must I add on programs for my Calendar alerts to function normally? Why?
So again. Is there a ROM out there that will strip all the Samsung goofiness? If I can't get this phone to work like I want I'm going to sell it and look for a Telus HTC Desire to use on ATT. HTC phones are the best man. IMHO
Thanks.

juiceppc said:
The brightness settings. WTF! Why did they implement like 10 ways the brightness screws with your day. On my HD2 w/Mattc I set the brightness in settings to where I wanted and it stayed. Forever. Also when it hits 10% it kicks the brightness all the way down. 10%? Com on maybe 5%. But what is worse is when it does kick it down I kick it back up but it dims again at every percent it goes down. ANNOYING. Please let me control my phone... Oh and don't get me started on the Browser brightness. Huh? Even with the browser brightness set at max it's still dimmer than my regular brightness setting. Noticably. I only keep my brightness at like 75-80% too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Turn off auto brightness and pick a setting you like. Done.
Also what the hell is with the lame Calendar notification settings? Are there any?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know what lame is, but I use my Google calendar and I can set notifications. I get notified. Is there a specific problem you have?
My question is this. Is there any ROM out there that will strip all that Samsung ideology and give me a stock Android experience. Especially without the brightness issues. Why do I need to slide my notification bar to change brightness? All it does for me is just cause my brightness to vary accidentally when I don't want it to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no stock Android experience. Android is just the core - Samsung, HTC, etc, they all add specific things in order for their specific hardware to function. If you don't want what comes on your AT&T Captivate, then you can root and uninstall the apps you don't like, flash one of the many, many cooked ROMs available on this forum (just look around - they are everywhere, and all with great pictures and descriptions and huge threads full of information), tweak settings to your heart's content, or anything else you want to do.
Why must I add on programs for my Calendar alerts to function normally? Why?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have any add-ons and I get my alerts. What exactly isn't working for you?

Auto brightness has been off. First thing I do-
I do not get audible alerts when a Calendar reminder goes off-(and there is no where in settings to change/check this)
I had to install "Calendar Snooze" to play an audible alert for a Calendar reminder-
Phone is at 10% now fully dimmed. Nice... Considering how bad the battery life is for this phone(for me) I'll be spending a lot of time with the screen fully dimmed.

juiceppc said:
Auto brightness has been off. First thing I do-
I do not get audible alerts when a Calendar reminder goes off-(and there is no where in settings to change/check this)
I had to install "Calendar Snooze" to play an audible alert for a Calendar reminder-
Phone is at 10% now fully dimmed. Nice... Considering how bad the battery life is for this phone(for me) I'll be spending a lot of time with the screen fully dimmed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try reading a little and you will see you can set the brightness at where you want it by un-checking the automatic brightness setting..Then you can swipe along the status bar to raise and lower the brightness..It will stay where you had it set IF the automatic brightness is unchecked..Where you have the slider at will be the brightest it will swipe to..
Set your alerts to something you can hear and turn up the volume..They work fine.
Battery life is not a issue provided you follow some advise..Bump charge it 1 time and then use it till it drains down to single digits before recharging...also make sure you back out of all programs and turn off wi-fi and gps and syncing when you don't need them. Loose any task killer program you have and run it stock..you will find your battery life is excellent..if not you may or may not have a bad battery..Lastly..if you are really dissatisfied with it..take it back..
Good Luck
Mac

In regards to the brightness, turn off auto brightness and the 'power saving option.', that should solve your issue.
As far as removing the AT&T bloatware goes, try Unleash the beast.
If you want to run Froyo try flashing a rom, I used the latest version of Cognition.

Run far away from this phone if you still have the chance.

MikeyMike01 said:
Run far away from this phone if you still have the chance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Broad-brush damnations do nothing to help anyone.

Mac11700 said:
Try reading a little and you will see you can set the brightness at where you want it by un-checking the automatic brightness setting..Then you can swipe along the status bar to raise and lower the brightness..It will stay where you had it set IF the automatic brightness is unchecked..Where you have the slider at will be the brightest it will swipe to..
Set your alerts to something you can hear and turn up the volume..They work fine.
Battery life is not a issue provided you follow some advise..Bump charge it 1 time and then use it till it drains down to single digits before recharging...also make sure you back out of all programs and turn off wi-fi and gps and syncing when you don't need them. Loose any task killer program you have and run it stock..you will find your battery life is excellent..if not you may or may not have a bad battery..Lastly..if you are really dissatisfied with it..take it back..
Good Luck
Mac
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the advice. Although I have done all of those things. I'm kind of coming to one real main pain point that I can't seem to solve. The screen dimming at 10%. Does anyone know how to disable that? Even if I kick the brightness back up after it dims at 10% it will redim at 9% and so on...

Bitter. But hopeful.
Picsman said:
Broad-brush damnations do nothing to help anyone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, running away from this phone does seem to be good advise. It doesn't mater how slick it is in theory. Uber display and kickass hardware are useless if the basic functionality suffers due to glitches most of the other options don't seem to exibit.
I decided to play the "mod and wait" game with this thing, and I'm regretting it. Broad-brush damnations would have helped me. At this point, enough issues have came up about this hardware that a "broad-brush" sticky may be warranted. The alert issues found by the OP, may be related to his speaker begining to fail. I had a similar issue. Calander and alarm notifications began failing in some apps, but not others. The phone would still ring. Some apps could still use the speaker. Within a week, nothing could use the speaker, and I had to do the "push-on-it" fix.
It's a forum. Posts are opinions. I've been impressed occasionally by the raw performance of this phone. Yet, I've also spent hours, hours, researching problems, applying fixes, flashing, pushing on the speaker, etc. And I've spent hours "waiting" for the thing to do something simple like send an email when it did fine the day before. With as much time and effort as I've put into researching and working on this phone, I feel like I (and others) have not gotten enough stability out of it.
I propose a broad brush damnation for this phone: "slick but intermittent".

fshalor said:
Unfortunately, running away from this phone does seem to be good advise. It doesn't mater how slick it is in theory. Uber display and kickass hardware are useless if the basic functionality suffers due to glitches most of the other options don't seem to exibit.
I decided to play the "mod and wait" game with this thing, and I'm regretting it. Broad-brush damnations would have helped me. At this point, enough issues have came up about this hardware that a "broad-brush" sticky may be warranted. The alert issues found by the OP, may be related to his speaker begining to fail. I had a similar issue. Calander and alarm notifications began failing in some apps, but not others. The phone would still ring. Some apps could still use the speaker. Within a week, nothing could use the speaker, and I had to do the "push-on-it" fix.
It's a forum. Posts are opinions. I've been impressed occasionally by the raw performance of this phone. Yet, I've also spent hours, hours, researching problems, applying fixes, flashing, pushing on the speaker, etc. And I've spent hours "waiting" for the thing to do something simple like send an email when it did fine the day before. With as much time and effort as I've put into researching and working on this phone, I feel like I (and others) have not gotten enough stability out of it.
I propose a broad brush damnation for this phone: "slick but intermittent".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
haha. Thanks for the ,.. opinion. I'm starting to feel the same way about this phone. I had super high hopes. But I'm really going to stick with HTC. They just get it. IMHO.

I think most people regret buying this phone. Or they will, when FroYo never arrives, the lag gets worse and worse, the phone dies on them, and the GPS never come close to working, the market decides not to intall your app, this, that, or the other thing force closes, etc. etc. etc.

MikeyMike01 said:
I think most people regret buying this phone. Or they will, when FroYo never arrives, the lag gets worse and worse, the phone dies on them, and the GPS never come close to working, the market decides not to intall your app, this, that, or the other thing force closes, etc. etc. etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Umm froyo is already leaked and OTA is on its way.
Lag has never been an issue.
And GPS is a software fix... proven on these boards over and over.
SHEESH... I'd say go tell somewhere else.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

yeah, 5 million people are completely dissatisfied because one guy managed to not know how to operate his phone.....

MikeyMike01 said:
I think most people regret buying this phone. Or they will, when FroYo never arrives, the lag gets worse and worse, the phone dies on them, and the GPS never come close to working, the market decides not to intall your app, this, that, or the other thing force closes, etc. etc. etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think your wrong. I think quite a few people got defective phones and haven't bothered returning them,thinking that if they root it and flash a different rom that would magically fix a broken phone. This is XDA and folks here mostly do this..thus the reason for most of the complaints. Problem is..it won't change much of anything to reflash if the phone is defective..If it is broken to begin with..it will be broken no matter what you do to it.. If yours is defective..quite *****ing about it and get one that isn't..or a different phone entirely. The working ones are great..just like they are supposed to be.
I have 2 of them built in September..both work and neither is defective.This tells me many of those built prior have some issues..perhaps not all of them..but some of them certainly. This certainly doesn't make it right by anyones account..just saying if yours is defective..return it and get one that isn't.
I honestly don't understand people who have the option of doing this,not doing it.The folks at my AT&T store opened 7 different boxes and checked every one of them for any blue tint on the screen and having the 3 button recovery option..for my second one bought at the same time,so I do know there are many out there that ain't working properly..The OP of this thread..is unhappy with it..damn..loose it and be done with it if you are that unhappy..or take that one back and get them to open up the boxes and show you one that works properly...If it was bought mail order..then you should just return it as defective and get your money back..and buy where you can see it first..It's your choice...and your money.
Mac

Horrible Battery Life

Hello All,
I have (2) N5's (one white, one black). I've noticed that battery life on the black one is extremely bad. I'm almost always near a charger, so it was quite a shock when I noticed the black one down to 37% by noon. The next day I swapped phones and never saw the charge on the white one drop below 97%. I wiped both phones and configured each identically and was able to duplicate very similar results over the next few days. This morning I decided to see what happened when I did not connect to a charger. My use has been almost nothing (5 mins of screen time, 3 hrs off battery), yet my phone is already at 81%. I notice "Android OS" is using approx 50% of the battery. I do have a few apps that run in the background and I also leave GPS, BT, mobile and wifi on all of the time, however this is no different than how I used the white one or any previous phones. I suspect this is a hardware problem, however I would like to try to pinpoint the cause to satisfy my own curiosity. Can anyone recommend specific apps/tools that would provide more detailed information about what is going on with the different subsystems (battery, cpu, radios, storage, etc) that could help me find the problem? Thank you.

Do some searching and reading.

It's your apps. Not a hardware problem.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Do a complete factory restore on both, with full charge, Then don't touch them at all, the post results
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

You have a wakelock obviously. My Android OS does the same thing, but it doesnt destroy the battery that bad. My wakelock is wlan_rx_wake, and its very annoying to get rid of. Still havent found a way to kill it yet.

I've noticed if you turn the location settings to "Device only" the Nexus 5 sips battery, while the screen is off, because it isn't always waking itself 1,000+ times a day to report your location.

caribouxda said:
Do some searching and reading.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pretty sure that's what I'm doing?
It's your apps. Not a hardware problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I initially thought the same thing; however, I did not install any apps after wiping the phone, yet the problem remains. Also, I do not have this problem on my other N5 with all of my normal apps installed and configured for normal use.
Do a complete factory restore on both, with full charge, Then don't touch them at all, the post results
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did this... mostly. After wiping both phones (by reflashing the factory image) I did charge both to 100% before using them. Unfortunately, I am on-call 24/7 and have to use one phone at all times. I did keep usage as identical as possible. I did this by not installing any apps and charging at the same times for the same amount of time. Also, my commute and time at work/home/elsewhere was almost identical. Of course there are some things that are out of my control (call, sms, emails, etc received), however it was certainly not enough to account for the difference I am seeing. If I take the phones off the charger at 7A, and use as little as possible, the white one will be >90% where the black one with be <40% by noon.
You have a wakelock obviously. My Android OS does the same thing, but it doesnt destroy the battery that bad. My wakelock is wlan_rx_wake, and its very annoying to get rid of. Still havent found a way to kill it yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This very well may be. How did you find out that your wakelock is wlan_rx_wake? This is what I'm really seeking - app recommendations or other ways to acquire this in-depth information. I've done some googling, but many of the apps that I've seen recommended do not work with KitKat. What I find most odd is how the white N5 with a 100% identical configuration does not have this problem.
I've noticed if you turn the location settings to "Device only" the Nexus 5 sips battery, while the screen is off, because it isn't always waking itself 1,000+ times a day to report your location.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. I suspect this would make a difference, however I am basing my expected usage on what I get with the white N5 with the same configuration. I did not change any settings on either and would like to see them similar with the same configuration. Once the issue is worked out, I will definitely take your advice and change this setting to increase my battery life.
Thank you all.

Did you download the firmware from Google then flash it in bootloader? Also you need to flash both phones to stock, Then not install any apps or settings on both so there both the same. That's a fair test.
If you can't do this, Then this thread is pointless as far as I'm concerned.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

markdexter said:
Did you download the firmware from Google then flash it in bootloader? Also you need to flash both phones to stock, Then not install any apps or settings on both so there both the same. That's a fair test.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I downloaded and flashed the stock image from Google. I run stock on all of my Nexus devices. I did not install any apps, however I had to setup E-Mail and modify my APN settings.
If you can't do this, Then this thread is pointless as far as I'm concerned.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why the attitude? You're clearly a helpful person, based on the time you spend helping others on here. If you're having a bad day or dealing with some personal issues, I sincerely hope things get better for you. If you really have a problem with my test constraints, then please move along. As a UNIX Administrator for the past 15 years, and a component-level electronics tech for 5 years before that, I can tell you from experience that the real world simply does not always provide for ideal conditions. While I agree that a 100% identical setup is preferred as a control, it's simply not an option. Even with my constraints, there is no way the number of emails and texts that I sent/received on a given day are the cause here. All that said, the point of this thread was to gain insight into how I can find more detailed information about what is going on with the various subsystems - either app recommendations or other tools. Much of the information I've found has been high-level - Settings > Battery or BetterBatteryStats (which doesn't work with KitKat AFAIK).
Thank you.

Without the 100% identical test, it's a guessing game.
I don't have an attitude, if I did, I would have told you my credentials, but I didn't think that had anything to do with this thread...
I'm not being a smart-ass buddy, and I do like to help on here as much as possible or as much as my knowledge can allow me.
Better battery stats, is for sure your best bet, that app is a must have for trouble shooting. I'm sure within a few days, there will be a update.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Things that really bother me about the current SW2 and why:

There really should be a pinned thread for utter disappointed features and/or people.
I am not returning my new SW2. Its too cool to have the lamest, inept and funtion-killing GUI cause me to give up. ** But I bought a Pebble watch the same day because (the SW2n currently):
- can not function as a watch. It does but it goes to sleep VERY fast. WAY too fast. This is completely unacceptable. If I want to drain my f*ing watch and be able to read it all day, I should be able to!!! Put a warning on the settings area.. like: WILL DRAIN BATTERY VERY FAST or something...
- Can not finish reading my incoming sms. Maybe you dont know the girl I am dating but she WRITES A LOT... and this may not be normal amounts ... I really mean a lot. And SONY clearly has NO IDEA about this.
- AND continuing from the above point, it goes back to the f*ing CLOCK in sleep mode. SHOULD dim and remain on my screen until I SAY OTHERWISE. NOW I have to press the power button and NOT make it power off buy accident (another STUPID DESIGN) and make it activate, press the home button and then the stupid function messaging button. NO LOGIC FLOW HERE. I have to read 5 or 6 TXTs by now.
- CAN NOT read the messages in order without going BACK and opening the messaging app again. At least that seems to be what I had to do. I might have missed proper procedure here but if that is true, shame on SONY for lacking a more intuitive operation.
The Poweramp app is cool when it works. It should STAY active. I DONT CARE about anyone else or what slogan SONY wants to claim about battery life. I want FUNCTION my f*ing way. I use Poweramp all the time. But it is not able to stay on my watch, active? Total shame.
The ONLY app I kept on my watch is the custom watch faces. It allwos me to keep the display on until the dumbwatch, overthinking watch disconnects from my RazrMaxx/4.4 Dhacker29 ROM.
So in conclusion, This watch completely fails at being a watch. Fails at running apps because it times out WAY TOO FAST. Fails at every possible area other than fitting well.

Maybe your accelerometer is faulty. It should not timeout when on hand, actually it dims and always shows time.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

jmaciak said:
Maybe your accelerometer is faulty. It should not timeout when on hand, actually it dims and always shows time.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hate to be the guy to say it, but is the OP trolling us?
I have the smartwatch 2, just got it yesterday, and what the OP is saying makes no sense.

deitiphobia said:
I hate to be the guy to say it, but is the OP trolling us?
I have the smartwatch 2, just got it yesterday, and what the OP is saying makes no sense.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well it can timeout and go totally blank ... try it, put them on the table and do not move the watch/table and it will dim and then go completely blank after a while, because the accelerometer sees it's not on the hand. So if OP's accelerometer is faulty, it might behave this way ...

jmaciak said:
Well it can timeout and go totally blank ... try it, put them on the table and do not move the watch/table and it will dim and then go completely blank after a while, because the accelerometer sees it's not on the hand. So if OP's accelerometer is faulty, it might behave this way ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not a troll. At least I am not trying to be a troll. I do feel slightly underwhelmed buy my experience so far.
And maybe my accelerometer needs checking? If it is supposed to remain on (the screen) for more than 5 seconds when I am wearing it and trying to read something, then yes, something is wrong. Maybe the watch doesnt know when it is on a troll arm?

deitiphobia said:
I hate to be the guy to say it, but is the OP trolling us?
I have the smartwatch 2, just got it yesterday, and what the OP is saying makes no sense.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
What he is saying actually makes perfect sense, especially on this forum - we are not the average, marketing-targeted user and we like to use our devices any way we please, without being limited by design hickups. And we are more sensitive to design flaws and marketing bs than the average consumer.
Sony missed and even lied about basic features and is not allowing, at least so far, anyone to tweak with this product's FW.
In my experience the watch proved very useful ONLY IF YOU ARE NOT RELYING SOLELY ON IT for most of your work - i, for one, would not like to read my correspondence on such a tiny screen and prefer to use the phone instead - but it would sure be nice to know that I CAN use the watch if i wanted to.
Fortunately, while driving a motorcycle, for example, getting a hint of the message content usually suffices for me to determine if i need to pullover and get my phone out, provided i get to see the screen before it times-out, which is another awkwardly missing basic function.
I will, however, hold on to the SW2 for now in hopes that Sony will straighten things the way they should.
Sent from my LT25i using Tapatalk

i agree fully with the OP as well
if i didn't know better, i would suggest posting your opinions on talk sonymobile, but as i already did that and got NO reply from Sony, i guess it would be just a waiste of time
that's my biggest problem with Sony right now: no communication
(although i must admit most manufacturers suck at communicating with their customers, try finding out when the Butterfly s is getting 4.3/4.4, not a chance)

I actually agree with the OP, there are some features that could be included in the settings menu like timeout duration or stopping the watch default to the watch screen every time it goes into standbye especially useful if travelling and using features like poweramp - you need 3x button presses to bring the poweramp screen back on and if you have a messaging app open (reading messages) it should prevent the watch from sleeping
and how fecking hard is it to develop a few watch face designs with different colours etc
TBH I think Sony are in the process of designing a totally new Smartwatch for release in early 2014 and have completely dropped the ball with this one

well, there was an update today, so i guess they didn't drop it completely
update looked good at first, but disappointing anyway
-only 1 extra watch face that's usable, i still want the abilty to design/choose my own watch face
-the option to use the light sensor for brightness is nice, but i'm glad it's optional, don't like it
-music app update totally messed it up (used to work for me)
-camera app update didn't do anything for me, still does nothing
-still no selectable timeout, huge issue for me
---------- Post added at 06:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:36 PM ----------
Find It for SmartWatch by AQ i purchased also doesn't work anymore
argh, their own Find Phone Smart Extension ALSO doesn't work anymore!

JarlSX said:
their own Find Phone Smart Extension ALSO doesn't work anymore!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AFAIK I suspect that problems might occur pairing the SW2 with a non-Sony smartphone.
But please let's keep the discussion in one place only, so we can better compare these findings:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2554874

i think i know why the watch can't dim while still displaying an app
those apps don't really run on the watch, they're just displaying what's happening on the phone (that's where the app is installed)
so for a watch-app to work, the watch is constantly communicating with the phone
such a connection will probably drain the watch very quickly
only the watch part can run independently, so that's why it always goes back to that screen, to save power
this is of course just what i think

FWIW, the screen on time can be controlled by the app. I use and app called IPBike for cycling which runs on the phone. This app allows you to use the watch as a head unit on the bars. It has an option to keep the watch screen on for the entire ride.

jmaciak said:
Well it can timeout and go totally blank ... try it, put them on the table and do not move the watch/table and it will dim and then go completely blank after a while, because the accelerometer sees it's not on the hand. So if OP's accelerometer is faulty, it might behave this way ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Should it really go totally blank/black? Mine is only dimmed out and showing clock face all the time, but really dimmy. And it is on the table...
Oh it does, took some time, longer than i expected...
Sent from my GT-N8000 using Tapatalk 4

So...my Droid Maxx eats 10% of battery in just 3 hours,,,

Well, this is not why I bought this phone for. SOT is only 25 minutes, and it is worse than my Xperia Z Ultra.

zllovesuki said:
Well, this is not why I bought this phone for. SOT is only 25 minutes, and it is worse than my Xperia Z Ultra.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont get it.....???????
Sent From Droid Ultra

caseyk621 said:
i dont get it.....???????
Sent from droid ultra
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
battery sucks for some reasons, solutions please?

zllovesuki said:
battery sucks for some reasons, solutions please?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Assuming you started from %100?
I found after some app updates that my play services cache was rather high and I had some unnusual battery drain. So I went to manage apps and cleared the cache on play services. Seemed to correct itself after that.

If you just got it then cycle it a couple times, it gets better after a week or so.
If you've had it awhile then a rogue app is causing it. BetterBatteryStats or gsam from play store will do better at helping figure it out.
5hrs 36mins SOT
Sent from my XT1080

KitKat and Jelly Bean have both had battery drains related to location services. I'm keeping location turned off until the next release. I'm not happy about it, but it does seem to make a difference.

cpurick said:
KitKat and Jelly Bean have both had battery drains related to location services. I'm keeping location turned off until the next release. I'm not happy about it, but it does seem to make a difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have an issue with location services unless I have google now enabled then it is a battery hog.

I had a massive battery drain because of WiFi even when off. Go to WiFi settings advanced turn off scanning always on.

you need to use better battery stats. just research xda for it. and follow the posts directions. you will find out what exactly is eating your battery.

zllovesuki said:
Well, this is not why I bought this phone for. SOT is only 25 minutes, and it is worse than my Xperia Z Ultra.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battery drain has been a relatively common experience after the KitKat 4.4 update. I have a Droid Mini, not a Maxx, but I've been seeing a lot of reports for all three of last years Droid line (Mini, Ultra and Maxx). Troubleshooting battery life is typically done through looking at events called wakelocks. Wakelocks are created by apps on your phone to prevent it from going into "deep sleep"--basically, they allow the CPU to stay on when the screen on your phone seems off. BetterBatteryStats or WakelockDetector are two apps that can be used to gain a little more insight into what wakelocks you are experiencing and what might be causing them.
However, wakelocks are broken down into two categories--those run by the Android kernel itself (kernal wakelocks) and those created by apps running in the background (partial wakelocks). Unfortunately, the 4.4 update made it impossible to view the partial wakelocks directly without root permissions. If you did as I did and naively updated to 4.4 without root, you won't be able to root your phone (as of now) to see the partial wakelocks. Instead, the wakelocks will show up under the kernal wakelocks that can be viewed--but instead of an app by app breakdown, they are visible only in the aggregate, so figuring out which app in particular is causing your problem can be a real trick.
One way to do so is to look at the apps running in the background of under the "Apps">"Running" in settings and see which apps you have actually been using and are supposed to appear and which apps are not. Then select the apps that you didn't start and force close them in sequence, checking Wakelock Detector or BetterBatteryStats after each to see if they have fixed your issue at all. The best way IMHO to see if they had an immediate effect is to look for increases in the "Deep Sleep" stat--if the app had been keeping your phone awake, and you force closed it, the Deep Sleep time should go up after you shut off your phone.
All that being said, troubleshooting is a real *****. There is an abundance of non-app-related issues with 4.4, or so it would appear. I have seen posts attributing fixes to turning location services to "GPS only". Others recommend clearing the Google Play Services cache in the Apps menu, clearing the cache in phone more generally, and using every other more conventional battery conservation trick in the book. Still others reported the only fix as a factor reset. These things had little to no benefit to me--although I never had to resort to a factory reset since I found a fix this morning. For me, all it took was going into Wifi>Advanced>Wi-Fi frequency band and changing from "Auto" to the 2.4GHz setting. This seems to have nailed the persistent wakelock issue that had been showing up as "Android OS" under the stock battery life in the settings, which showed up as a kernel wakelock under "suspend_backoff" in BetterBatteryStats. Hope that something out of all of this can help you--I'm immensely frustrated with how poorly my phone performed for the last month after the KitKat upgrade. It appears, however, that the fix I just found has restored my battery life from the 3-6 hours I have been getting lately to 12-14 hours. I'll update in a couple days after I see how things go. Best of luck!

Update, after a real short period of time:
Somehow doing this appears to have broken my Touchless Control. I can't get Google to recognize the "Ok, Google Now" bit, which it had done in the past nearly flawlessly, nor will Google Search transcribe voice searches, period. Going into the Settings>Touchless Control shows Touchless Control to be unchecked, but tapping the button to enable Touchless Control doesn't do anything. The button dims slightly, as if the press is registered, but the box doesn't check and the Voice Search and continues not to work. Interestingly, putting the Wifi back on "Auto" as opposed to 2.4GHz doesn't seem to fix this; rebooting into Safe Mode makes it work fine though. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling my Touchless Control app, but I'm hoping this isn't a persistent issue for me. Ugh. In any case, I'll take battery life over Touchless Control for the time being.
EDIT: Voice input doesn't work anywhere on my phone--I can't press the microphone button on the keyboard and speak, for example, to dictate a text message. Potentially this is unrelated to the battery life issue, but I'm going to do some more digging and see what I can find.

Jumnhy said:
Update, after a real short period of time:
Somehow doing this appears to have broken my Touchless Control. I can't get Google to recognize the "Ok, Google Now" bit, which it had done in the past nearly flawlessly, nor will Google Search transcribe voice searches, period. Going into the Settings>Touchless Control shows Touchless Control to be unchecked, but tapping the button to enable Touchless Control doesn't do anything. The button dims slightly, as if the press is registered, but the box doesn't check and the Voice Search and continues not to work. Interestingly, putting the Wifi back on "Auto" as opposed to 2.4GHz doesn't seem to fix this; rebooting into Safe Mode makes it work fine though. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling my Touchless Control app, but I'm hoping this isn't a persistent issue for me. Ugh. In any case, I'll take battery life over Touchless Control for the time being.
EDIT: Voice input doesn't work anywhere on my phone--I can't press the microphone button on the keyboard and speak, for example, to dictate a text message. Potentially this is unrelated to the battery life issue, but I'm going to do some more digging and see what I can find.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you have checked under settings, language and input?
Do you have any third party keyboards installed?
Have you done or considered doing a factory data reset?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

jfriend33 said:
What do you have checked under settings, language and input?
Do you have any third party keyboards installed?
Have you done or considered doing a factory data reset?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No third party keyboards whatsoever. Up until now I had been really happy with Google's stock keyboard. Under Settings>Language and Input I have Google (English) checked, as well as Google Pinyin Input, and Google voice typing, which is set to English (US).
Been thinking about doing a factory data reset but would like to avoid it if possible because I've been horribly disorganized about curating my contacts across a variety of Google accounts--I know that if I had to, I have all my information backed up, but it'd be a big pain getting it sorted again afterward. I've heard others say that an FDR has fixed the battery all on its own. I don't know if I mentioned, but booting into safe mode restores the voice input functionality.

Got a Droid Mini now myself for a few days, it's at 4.4 and obviously unrooted and there apparently is no hope for the Chinese unlock nowadays either, sadly, so that means doing whatever possible to ensure the best battery life on mine as well. I hadn't considered forcing the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi operation so I set it that way just now and then immediately attempted to use touchless control and it's working fine for mine with only that one change from Auto to 2.4 made.
I was using GSam Battery Monitor to get some idea of what's going on with this device but recently decided to just give the Snapdragon BatteryGuru a shot and see what happens (got another 1.5 days of monitoring before it does whatever it's supposed to do).
On complete idle it does lose about 1.2% per hour (with Wi-Fi off) but I might redo that test now with the 2.4 GHz manual setting and see if anything is changed.
It's not anywhere near the battery life of the Droid MAXX I had and sold, obviously, but so far it's doing ok. I ordered an Incipio Ghost 100 Qi-charging base a few days ago, hopefully it'll be here by the weekend so I can stop wearing and tearing the microUSB port.
Will see what happens...

br0adband said:
Got a Droid Mini now myself for a few days, it's at 4.4 and obviously unrooted and there apparently is no hope for the Chinese unlock nowadays either, sadly, so that means doing whatever possible to ensure the best battery life on mine as well. I hadn't considered forcing the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi operation so I set it that way just now and then immediately attempted to use touchless control and it's working fine for mine with only that one change from Auto to 2.4 made.
I was using GSam Battery Monitor to get some idea of what's going on with this device but recently decided to just give the Snapdragon BatteryGuru a shot and see what happens (got another 1.5 days of monitoring before it does whatever it's supposed to do).
On complete idle it does lose about 1.2% per hour (with Wi-Fi off) but I might redo that test now with the 2.4 GHz manual setting and see if anything is changed.
It's not anywhere near the battery life of the Droid MAXX I had and sold, obviously, but so far it's doing ok. I ordered an Incipio Ghost 100 Qi-charging base a few days ago, hopefully it'll be here by the weekend so I can stop wearing and tearing the microUSB port.
Will see what happens...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad to know that the Wi-Fi settings aren't the likely culprit of my ****ed voice input. I tried the Snapdragon BatteryGuru for a while--for me the effect was negligible over a period of about two weeks. What was the wakelock keeping your phone up?

Jumnhy said:
Glad to know that the Wi-Fi settings aren't the likely culprit of my ****ed voice input. I tried the Snapdragon BatteryGuru for a while--for me the effect was negligible over a period of about two weeks. What was the wakelock keeping your phone up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have no idea, haven't bothered to look at the wakelocks presently. I got used to using TricksterMod to monitor everything but of course I can't do anything with it because of no root access.
Really wish a miracle would come along at some point, we could use a working root definitely.
Hell, we could use 4.4.2 AND a working root to be honest, hopefully whenever 4.4.2 comes along it'll fix a lot of crap in 4.4 that Motorola and Verizon just broke for whatever reason. Bleh.
Come on, Motorola, make it happen.
<and offer the option for us end users to purchase an unlock code direct from you, too...>

br0adband said:
I have no idea, haven't bothered to look at the wakelocks presently. I got used to using TricksterMod to monitor everything but of course I can't do anything with it because of no root access.
Really wish a miracle would come along at some point, we could use a working root definitely.
Hell, we could use 4.4.2 AND a working root to be honest, hopefully whenever 4.4.2 comes along it'll fix a lot of crap in 4.4 that Motorola and Verizon just broke for whatever reason. Bleh.
Come on, Motorola, make it happen.
<and offer the option for us end users to purchase an unlock code direct from you, too...>
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I'm with you there. I'm hoping we get 4.4.2 by mid/end of the summer, and in the meantime sitting here kicking myself for not jumping on top of buying an unlock code while they were available. $40 would have been cheap compared to putting up with this broken ****. I've been hugely disappointed in Motorola for failing to address the bugs in 4.4 in any sort of official capacity for the Droid lineup. It's funny--I didn't really care about having root so long as my phone was working. But trying to fix everything that has gone wrong has gotten my just drooling for root. Hopefully we get it eventually, and I know that the next phone I buy will DEFINITELY have an unlocked bootloader. Ugh.

I swore I'd never purchase another Motorola product and I suppose technically I haven't meaning I will never directly buy one from Motorola or from a carrier with their products (not even Google) - I got this Droid Mini for a decent price from someone off craigslist after selling the Droid MAXX for a very nice profit indeed so, in the long run I got the Droid MAXX free of charge to begin with, made profit from that then bought the Mini which is basically the same device in a smaller package more or less and still no money has gone directly to Motorola (or Verizon for that matter since I use T-Mobile just fine).
Gave up on Motorola when they pooched all of us Atrix and Photon owners so to hell with Motorola for that fiasco. Now it seems like they're doing it again by being slow and stupid for whatever reason.
I cannot for the life of me understand why it takes these companies so damned long to release a fix or update for a device - consider that the Moto X, the Droid Ultra, the Droid MAXX, and the Droid Mini all have the same X8 custom chipset and are basically the same devices in almost every respect and yet it still just doesn't get done like it should.
It's pathetic but I'm ranting now... my intolerance for stupid people (and companies) is well known so, Motorola, I can see not much has changed and so neither will my opinion.
I like the Droid Mini, it's a nice device, works fine given the limitations (no root yet, no 4.4.2) and the rather meager 2000 mAh battery. I could sell this I suppose, get me another Atrix HD (and still be mostly locked down I guess) but then slap that RAZR MAXX battery in it and get near-Droid MAXX battery life once again.
Nah, I think I'll keep the Mini unless someone makes me another offer I can't refuse. I see them listed on craigslist for rather low prices - exactly why I got this one a few days ago - and I honestly think there are a lot of people that just don't realize this is basically a "Moto X Jr" model that does effectively the same things including Active Display and "OK Google Now" touchless control.
You'd think most consumers were stupid or something for not noticing just what a fine device this Mini actually is. </sarcasm>

br0adband said:
I was using GSam Battery Monitor to get some idea of what's going on with this device but recently decided to just give the Snapdragon BatteryGuru a shot and see what happens (got another 1.5 days of monitoring before it does whatever it's supposed to do).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried that a week or so ago. I didn't let it control WiFi for me, but otherwise let it do its thing. (I also wouldn't let it turn off GMail syncing unless the phone was on - having GMail come to me close to push is one of the reasons I carry the thing with me.) It didn't make a damned bit of difference for me; it's off the phone now.
I've done the 2.4 GHz only thing. We'll see if it helps.

My ultra was doing the same thing. I back up my phone and factory reset it. For the first couple days I was killing the battery quickly from setting up my phone again and with in a week or so my battery life seemed to come back as it was in 4.2.
Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

[RANT] - Lollipop is not great, but tolerable

I was very excited to see this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/ver...w-to-update-to-g900voc4-5-0-keeproot-t3068546
So, I pushed ahead thinking that Lollipop has already been in the wild long enough, surely the initial kinks like WiFi drops and battery hogging have been resolved. No such luck, and after doing it, it looks like I'm going to have to do this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2784880
Lollipop is horrible. My phone no longer does one of the most basic things that's been around since the G1: Go (the F) to sleep! Seriously?!?!
Here are my other problems:
-Phone doesn't sleep on its own if timeout set for longer than 30 seconds (and even then, it's not reliable)
-WiFi doesn't reconnect after sleep (when sleep even happens, which is only when I push the button to force it). I have to toggle WiFi off/on to reconnect.
-Battery drain is pretty bad. My first month with the S5 had me barely even thinking about charging. Now, with Lollipop, I feel like I'm back on my old HTC MyTouch!
-The silly way they implemented the lockscreen. Here's my problem: I can ONLY use Settings > Sound and Notification > While locked with the option "Do not show notifications". Why? Any other setting blocks the Owner Information (Settings > Lock screen > Owner Information). If I don't, and if I'm unfortunate enough to have lost my phone, yet fortunate enough to have it found by a good samaritan, I better hope I haven't miss any calls or received any messages in the meantime. This one REALLY GRINDS MY GEARS because it's a horribly-implemented Feature ... at least the others are unintended bugs, but somebody had to give this one the green light.
-I can't adjust the icon sizes anymore. There used to be a choice of large or small icons.
-Oh, and for some bonehead reason, Samsung decided their stock ROM wouldn't have the Lollipop built-in flashlight icon.
-Another intentional feature that I can't disable: the phone keeps a history of recent activity that persists through reboots. YUCK! Why can I not disable this?!?! Again, another bonehead call that somebody had to green-light, without even considering the possibility that I might want to turn it off!
-All the UI "polishing" and improvements don't mean a thing to me, I want it to work.
I found all of the above in less than 24 hours on Lollipop! I might lose my s**t entirely if I keep it for much longer.
Here is my take on why:
Google and Apple are in a heated race to the top. They wrongly assume that what will set each apart from one another is almost entirely dependent on what a few bloggers say about some hot new feature. The paradigm appears to be something like: "Who cares if millions of loyal subscribers lose functionality when we want 100 people to have this one obscure and half-baked feature?"
Latest != Greatest
-----
EDIT:
I've had a change of heart on this. It's not too bad, I just needed to adjust a few settings and live with the other issues.

I too do not like the lolli. Bad battery life, and for some reason the Heart rate monitor led turns on whenever anything is within a half inch of it. I just can't figure that out, but it sucks the battery like a red led vampire!
Sent from my SM-G900V using XDA Premium HD app

Tldnr
Don't start a thread just to complain

Lmfao when I saw that link and clicked it, I actually had that same thread opened moments before opening this thread because I, too, am having to go back to KitKat. I laughed for a good 20 seconds. Lollipop is freaking terrible at the moment. Zero customization and Google + Samsung are forcing too much garbage on us without giving any bit of customization.

mygraine said:
I too do not like the lolli. Bad battery life, and for some reason the Heart rate monitor led turns on whenever anything is within a half inch of it. I just can't figure that out, but it sucks the battery like a red led vampire!
Sent from my SM-G900V using XDA Premium HD app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heart rate monitor thing was fixed in OC4 I think, but if it still goes off a factory reset will fix it.

Agree
OP, I agree with you. It probably is the first version without the definitely improvement overall for users. It is risky to upgrade and troublesome if it didn't work out well on your devices. Wish Android 5.1 could be better than Kitkat overall.

I have absolutely no problems with the lollipop. I always had it stock from the start and just let the OTAs take over on their own. Have you tried even rebooting into recovery and wipe cache? Even though it's not a custom recovery you can still do that, also even when you dirty flash nightlies that's something that's good practice. My wife's phone had similar issues that I wasn't experiencing, until I did that to her phone and now she's having no problems. Now the general annoyances of how Samsung implemented ****, I understand, it's stupid with not having native flashlight, tethering is annoying having to use foxfi, and the lockscreen.. bleh. But other than that, everything is actually working like it is supposed to

Chiming in, Yes it's bad.
I have two lines with Verizon, both with S5 phones on them. Great device, its actually the first Android phone I've had that I did not do anything with beyond the out of the box experience. That changed when Lollipop was pushed via OTA, the most prominent issue I experienced on both of my S5s is general responsiveness issues, simple things like switching apps or launching apps sometimes would leave me with a white screen for between 5-10 seconds, an eternity especially when the device was lighting fast on 4.4.4 Kitkat. I followed every suggestion from wiping the device in Android, Wiping in recovery, wiping cache, all of these with only marginal improvements. It really is a shame that Google / Samsung did not do a bit better quality assurance on this build before it was pushed out to carriers and ultimately peoples devices. It says something that other carriers skipped 5.0 and that very rapidly 5.1 surfaced on Newer devices / Nexus devices.
As of last night both of my phones are Odin'd back to 4.4.4 and its like having a brand new phone. Sure, there might not be as much polish, but there are no features I will die without having. The only one that I can say I do miss is the feature where the device will disable the lock screen when your smart watch or home WiFi is connected.
Here's to hoping that Google eventually gets Android 5 right in the optimization department and that Samsung picks it up for the S5, and that Verizon gets it ready for OTA before I am ready to move on to a new device. Not interested in the S6 at all for its sealed nature for storage and battery, but that's for another thread on a different day.
-Nate

I Have to agree. I've given it several chances to perform to expectations but it just fails.... ( insert sad puppy face here ) no matter what I have tried it just under-performs and the biggest thing is the horrible battery life. Sooooo yeah like most of the other commentators in this thread, I'm moving back to 4.4.4......

Unfortunately/fortunately, I have found most of my battery issues were solved with a factory reset. I'm more frustrated that Samsung seems to having issues with Android Auto.

ldeveraux said:
Tldnr
Don't start a thread just to complain
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Observations, not complaints. Getting these points out in the open is an essential stepping stone to getting them fixed. Maybe, just maybe, a Producteer or architect at Google has read this by now so they know what to improve next time. Problems cannot be solved until they are defined.
---
UPDATE:
The issue with the screen not sleeping was actually related to the "Show CPU Usage" setting in the app "OS Monitor". I've used that for years on previous Android version with no problems. In Lollipop, it must be disabled.

CaptainRewind said:
Observations, not complaints. Getting these points out in the open is an essential stepping stone to getting them fixed. Maybe, just maybe, a Producteer or architect at Google has read this by now so they know what to improve next time. Problems cannot be solved until they are defined.
---
UPDATE:
The issue with the screen not sleeping was actually related to the "Show CPU Usage" setting in the app "OS Monitor". I've used that for years on previous Android version with no problems. In Lollipop, it must be disabled.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, go start a petition, just like the bootloader guys, see how far it got them? No one from google reads your complaint threads and regrets their work...

ldeveraux said:
Yeah, go start a petition, just like the bootloader guys, see how far it got them? No one from google reads your complaint threads and regrets their work...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I guess that was wishful thinking.
In any case, it seems this thread was a complete waste of time. It made me feel better at the time, but looking back on it and the purpose of this site, it doesn't add any value or help anyone modify their phone. Not only that, one of my primary reasons for the OP was the screen lock issues which turned out to be an app, not the Android version.
So, I stand corrected. Live and learn. Enough said.

My wife would never let me root her phone ever. After this update either I find a way to go back a few with root or it goes against the wall. Looks like I have to start reading and figure out how to do this.

Lol I love how you described it. Sometimes you have to vent. Lol

CaptainRewind said:
UPDATE:
The issue with the screen not sleeping was actually related to the "Show CPU Usage" setting in the app "OS Monitor". I've used that for years on previous Android version with no problems. In Lollipop, it must be disabled.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Care to share where this app is?
Sent from my SM-G900V using XDA Free mobile app

dk-v1 said:
Care to share where this app is?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the one:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eolwral.osmonitor&hl=en
It's a great app, but something about it staying active in the Notification Bar keeps the screen awake. I still use the app, just can't keep the notification active in Lollipop.
And in case it isn't obvious, even though I still have my concerns about Lollipop, I never did go about the procedure of downgrading. It looks like a risky procedure, and I don't want to trip Knox, or worse, have a brick.

CaptainRewind said:
This is the one:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eolwral.osmonitor&hl=en
It's a great app, but something about it staying active in the Notification Bar keeps the screen awake. I still use the app, just can't keep the notification active in Lollipop.
And in case it isn't obvious, even though I still have my concerns about Lollipop, I never did go about the procedure of downgrading. It looks like a risky procedure, and I don't want to trip Knox, or worse, have a brick.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, so it's not a stock app. I am still having poor battery life and overheating issues.
Sent from my SM-G900V using XDA Free mobile app