Solved - Atrix 2 Battery Life Dropped in Half - K-9 Mail Issue - Motorola Atrix 2

A few weeks ago, my battery life suddenly dropped in half. Previously, my phone could make it through the work day, but suddenly, it was dead in just a few hours after each time I charged it. And I could feel it getting almost painfully hot in my pocket.
I searched all over the web (including here) but found no one who had solved the same problem.
I tried some battery monitor apps (e.g., 'Watchdog'), but got no alarms. I tried 'BetterBatteryStats,' but trying to figure out the difference between 'Kernal Wakelocks' and 'Partial Wakelocks' seemed more like a science project than a troubleshooting step. I need this phone for work after all.
I did notice K-9 Mail show up a few times on the stock Android 'Setting-Battery' screen, but at first I thought nothing of it, since I'd been using K-9 for months with no problems, and it didn't show the kind of excessive drain that I was seeing.
But just on a hunch, I turned synchronization off in the K-9 Mail app. Viola! That was it. No more hot phone; no more dead battery. More searches specific to K-9 yielded only tips on how to make and read logs.
So I enabled logging in K-9 and turned synchronization back on. I am not allowed to post links here (because we are all presumed guilty until proven innocent), but you can search for instructions on K-9 Mail Logging (I found them on 'github.'). After an hour or so (I probably didn't need to wait this long.), I viewed the log in the 'aLogCat' Andriod app. Then, the problem became obvious. Several times per second, K-9 was trying to sync my 'Drafts' folder in my IMAP e-mail account and failing with an error - something about UIDs not matching (whatever those are). This activity was probably keeping the processor awake and running at full speed at all times. Since I don't care about synchronizing my 'Drafts' folder, I made it a '2nd class' folder to stop it from synchronizing.
Problem solved (or at least masked)!
I am not sure why the problem occurred to begin with (maybe the ICS update, a K-9 update, a change on the server side, or just another unexplained random Android behavior), nor its root cause, but it irritates the heck out of me that the Android OS has so little ability to manage (or even to indicate) a rogue app.
I'm hesitant to spend more time troubleshooting it further, but I thought I'd share this experience in case someone else comes across it.

Bob G said:
A few weeks ago, my battery life suddenly dropped in half. Previously, my phone could make it through the work day, but suddenly, it was dead in just a few hours after each time I charged it. And I could feel it getting almost painfully hot in my pocket.
I searched all over the web (including here) but found no one who had solved the same problem.
I tried some battery monitor apps (e.g., 'Watchdog'), but got no alarms. I tried 'BetterBatteryStats,' but trying to figure out the difference between 'Kernal Wakelocks' and 'Partial Wakelocks' seemed more like a science project than a troubleshooting step. I need this phone for work after all.
I did notice K-9 Mail show up a few times on the stock Android 'Setting-Battery' screen, but at first I thought nothing of it, since I'd been using K-9 for months with no problems, and it didn't show the kind of excessive drain that I was seeing.
But just on a hunch, I turned synchronization off in the K-9 Mail app. Viola! That was it. No more hot phone; no more dead battery. More searches specific to K-9 yielded only tips on how to make and read logs.
So I enabled logging in K-9 and turned synchronization back on. I am not allowed to post links here (because we are all presumed guilty until proven innocent), but you can search for instructions on K-9 Mail Logging (I found them on 'github.'). After an hour or so (I probably didn't need to wait this long.), I viewed the log in the 'aLogCat' Andriod app. Then, the problem became obvious. Several times per second, K-9 was trying to sync my 'Drafts' folder in my IMAP e-mail account and failing with an error - something about UIDs not matching (whatever those are). This activity was probably keeping the processor awake and running at full speed at all times. Since I don't care about synchronizing my 'Drafts' folder, I made it a '2nd class' folder to stop it from synchronizing.
Problem solved (or at least masked)!
I am not sure why the problem occurred to begin with (maybe the ICS update, a K-9 update, a change on the server side, or just another unexplained random Android behavior), nor its root cause, but it irritates the heck out of me that the Android OS has so little ability to manage (or even to indicate) a rogue app.
I'm hesitant to spend more time troubleshooting it further, but I thought I'd share this experience in case someone else comes across it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have this issue, but got to appreciate your effort for writing down this elaborate account of how you resolved it. :good:

Now I am having the same issue with my new Samsung Galaxy S4. I should notify the K-9 developers ...

Don't worry for km in s4...had same issue....it's battery problem...I had to buy a new battery as Samsung acknowledged made in China battery that initially came were defective..now they are providing made in Malaysia battery...The whole net is flooded with this problem of battery getting swollen and unexpected shutdowns...just check the battery for swelling to be on the safe side.
Sent from my GT-I9500 using xda app-developers app

Related

Gmail Syncing issue?

I just noticed that I hadn't gotten any emails in a while on my N1. So I checked Gmail on my computer and it showed 5 new emails that I hadn't seen. Digging a little deeper, I found that the gmail app on my phone hasn't successfully synced in the last 24 hours and I also can't access any past emails other than those that are already shown in my inbox(it won't load any that aren't already on the phone, gives a "Network Issue" error). What's even more strange is everything else on the phone works perfectly and even the number of new emails is updated in the gmail app, it just won't download the emails themselves. Is anyone else having these problems?
I just checked mine and it is up to date. In fact, I am usually getting a notification of gmail on my N1 before it shows up on gmail web site or indicated by Gtalk.
Hopefully, your issue is temporary and the 'network issue' will go away.
....and fixed. I still have no idea what was going wrong but going into the manage applications settings menu and clearing the data on gmail and gmail storage fixed it. Hopefully this issue doesn't get too widespread, cause no non-tech savvy person would ever be able to figure that out.
Alright, it turns out this is a really big freaking deal(as far as I can test it anyway). Any time I try to attach pictures to an email and send it, it causes this. And there's no way to undo it that I can find other than manually clearing the data in Gmail Storage.
...And from looking at the logcat, It gets a file not found exception when trying to load the attachment. I'm using a fresh picture taken from the camera to test it so this looks like a pretty big bug. I'll poke around a bit more though.
After a bit more testing, this only happens pictures taken from the camera for some reason. Can anyone else confirm that this happens for them too?
Alright, I think I got this(at least partway) figured out. It wasn't all pictures but just a couple specific ones. For some reason, there are some pictures that I took yesterday with my Nexus One that didn't actually get saved anywhere(I'm not sure how it even knows they exist, or where it's finding the image). The image I was trying was one of those, but trying another one that did get saved worked perfectly. So I guess this is less an issue with gmail and more an issue with the camera not always saving pictures correctly. Gmail just completely chokes when you attach a file that doesn't actually exist.
Hmmm...
My gmail hadnt synced for several hours today.
Rebooted..seems ok now.
I did actually send an attachement from a note pad application to myself last night.
No idea what the correlation is if any.
Not sure if anyone has noticed this, but if you are actively logged in to gmail (say, from a desktop) while accessing your gmail on your phone, the results are somewhat wonky and unpredictable.
I've seen this issue on my G1 and it continues on my N1.
I experinced this issue also. The issue seemed to exist across reboots. For some reason I was convinced that the issue had something to do with facebook syncing. I deleted that account and the problem went away. But know that I think about it, I did try emailing a picture that I had just taken right before I noticed the problem(emailed straight from the camera app), and I know that email did not go through. Hmm, definitely sounds like a bug somewhere.
cliffy15 said:
Not sure if anyone has noticed this, but if you are actively logged in to gmail (say, from a desktop) while accessing your gmail on your phone, the results are somewhat wonky and unpredictable.
I've seen this issue on my G1 and it continues on my N1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me too. I noticed same in G1 and now on Nexus while all time logged-in Gmail using Mozilla on desktop while at work. Totally unpredictable many time I see first on desktop and then later (some times way later) on G1 and Nexus.
Jp
I've been having sync issues too. I don't really do much with email, mostly receiving and I find myself having to refresh manually, all the time. It has been about 3-4 days or so. It worked perfectly at first...
Here was my problem: check settings and then the sync menu. It says something & sync. My auto sync was unchecked. Working great now!
Been having sync issues, posting in a thread about it over on the google support boards. Not major to me, just annoying and hope it gets resolved.
Thank you so much for the detailed responses about this Marcus. I thought I had messed up gmail with my theme, but then I read this thread and remembered that I had tried to send a picture through gmail immediantly after taking it, and after clearing data for gmail and gmail storage, it worked again.
So again, thank you, that is one less bug I have to deal with my theme causing.
I've had this issue when trying to email "large" (over 2MB'ish, as a rough guess) files.

Email sync/slowness issue

Email sync/slowness issue
I have my Captivate to automatically retieve emails every 15 mins but it does not, I have to go into email account and select refresh.
Also it is very slow when retieving/deleting email.
is anyone else having any issues?
Im definitely having the same issue. My email will also sometimes tel
l me i have email when i don't. Its a little aggravating.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Try a factory reset. It was taking SO long to push some emails from an account that is relatively empty so I just had about enough of that and decided to do a reset and everything is peachy. Instantly the emails started to load up into the inbox and 5 seconds later it was done.. Amazing!
heygrl said:
Try a factory reset. It was taking SO long to push some emails from an account that is relatively empty so I just had about enough of that and decided to do a reset and everything is peachy. Instantly the emails started to load up into the inbox and 5 seconds later it was done.. Amazing!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same problem. Any other than a factory reset? because reinstalling everyting and reconfigure all my phone that's a bummer.
floppy__ said:
I have the same problem. Any other than a factory reset? because reinstalling everyting and reconfigure all my phone that's a bummer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree. Got a weeks worth of time invested in getting this thing set up and programs installed (and paid for).
Mine too doesnt do anything until I go into the mail program. It wont even save my changes I make in the email settings. I set mine to automatic, so they arrive as soon as i get an email, but it keeps going back to the 15 and 30 minute settings. This is my only issue with the phone.
Can someone who has done a hard reset try saving their settings to automatic, go into task killer , kill the email program and go back into email and see if it saved??
Instead of using the "email" program I use the "gmail" built in program and I get instant emails. But then again, I use gmail.
Same here. I use gmail for my personal account but for work I use the regular mail app on the phone. I also set up gmail on that app as well. The actual gmail app works great but my gmail account in the regular mail app doesn't--it will tell me I have gmail mail a couple hours after I have already looked at it in the gmail app and marked as read. Same thing with the work mail, things show up much later then they should.
Haven't found a way to fix it yet.
Are you guys using a task killer? If so and the email program is not ignored, the task killer will close the email app...which at that point is running services to retrieve your email.
In the same boat. I have both GMail and the Email program. Gmail is of course instant, however the built in email is horrible (at least with Exchange). I'm not killing it with taskkiller, and I've deleted and reset it up multiple times. I installed Touchdown and gave it a try, however it really didn't seem to make a huge difference. Unfortunately I think it's something we are going to have to endure until 2.2, which supposedly has Active Synch improvements.
I don't have experience with Exchange but really, a reset will speed up a lot of the loading screen "lag". That's the only thing that will.
heygrl said:
I don't have experience with Exchange but really, a reset will speed up a lot of the loading screen "lag". That's the only thing that will.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And after the reset do you use a restore of titanium backup or do you have to do all resinstall manually and re-configure everything (like home screeens and apps)
The issue isn't so much loading screen lag, it's a long period of waiting to do anything (open, reply, delete) when navigation in the program. I'm assuming (more like guessing) that other phones simply make everything appear to happen instantly, and then perform the tasks in the background unlike on Android where everything is done real time.
For instance on my Blackberry and iPhone when I selected 5 emails and chose delete, all 5 would disappear and I could continue working. In Email I select the 5 messages, the program says Messages Deleted then I watch for 5 to 10 seconds as the messages are deleted one at a time, preventing any meaningful use of the program until the process completes. I've checked the Exchange logs, no errors or anything out of the ordinary. It works, just very slowly.
I had the same problem, but K9 instead. After a _lot_ of testing, gnashing of teeth, and pulling of hair, I think I've found the cause.
Email and K9 both appear to store stuff in the /data dir. This is the exact same location that others online have found to be drag-ass slow and the general cause for black screens and/or lag in general. Which pretty much describes exactly what was happening to me with Email and K9. Search here or at MoDaCo for more info on the lag issue.
The solution is to either hope Samsung can somehow fix the speed of the internal SD card or store data elsewhere. I'd be amazed if Samsung ever fixes the speed issue. And storing data elsewhere isn't an option build into either application. K9 might eventually have that feature added, but I doubt Email ever will. There's a potential fix shown at MoDaCo, but it involves rooting, updating the kernel, and partitioning an external SD card. Nothing difficult, but not for everybody.
Touchdown has an option to store data on the external SD card, so it shouldn't suffer the same problem. I haven't played with it yet to see if it does or not.
As for why Gmail seems to work ok, that's a little trickier. It stores under the same path as the others, but it appears to work in an asynchronus mode, relying more on what you have on the server and only checking the local copy if it can't hit the network. At least that's the best explanation I can come up with for why it seems to work much better than Email or K9.
I was using the Nexus One 2.2, with 2 different Exchange syncs and gmail... NO Problem at all.
Different story with the Captivate... Not rooted, with ATT bloat... hardly any other apps loaded, tried both popular loaders. The email is all most unbearable (and unacceptable), reminds me of the iPhone 3g, if not worse.
Hopefully we'll see a straight 2.2 build soon, or I'm really considering returning the phone (already sold my N1 for a chunk of change).. I have 27 days remaining for a return.
Stock 2.2 is the only way to go.
I'd love a stock 2.2 build! But... unless we get lucky with a major change in the driver for the internal (non-sd) filesystem, I don't think it's going to help with the e-mail issue (or the general lag/blackscreen issue) at all.
It's definately not the at&t bloat, I have mine rooted and all of the at&t apps removed. I definately think the data parition fx is the best route to persue.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
You haven't tried a reset? The Email app syncs my GMail account quickly for me, however before I did a reset it was loading in my emails one at a time and was noticeably poor.

Gmail and tmail.exe slowing winmo

On 5/19/11 I noticed my phone was getting hot and was not responding when I hit the red key to wake it up. I thought I had an application that was causing the problem so after dealing with it for a couple of days I did a hard reset and started rebuilding my phone app by app.
Well, it didn't take long before it started happening again. At this point I had only configured my email accounts, 1 gmail and 2 other. I thought my phone was about to die (it just came off warranty last month). Then I noticed that tmail.exe was running and consuming ~95% cpu. I figured it was something to do with sending and receiving mail so I went to my email accounts and found that my gmail account was stuck at logging on.
I deleted the gmail account and the problem has gone away. This is not an acceptable solution because I get most of my mail through gmail.
My question is this: WTF is google trying to do now that our email accounts lock up our winmo phones and is this happening to any other os's?
John
This started happening to me as well on my Touch Pro 2.
tmail.exe gets stuck at 100% and when I open gmail it appears to be hung at "disconnecting"
The account works fine if I click send/receive manually. This just started happening a few days ago.
Subbing to this thread.
Another person with the same problem:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=331d0e5691783390&hl=en
I suspect most people are not savvy enough to realize the problem is tmail-gmail.
Count me in on this problem too. HTC HD2, WM6.5. First noticed something was up on Friday morning (5/20) when I woke up and my phone was dead. Recharged during the day but the battery was still draining and phone was running hot! Sure enough, tmail.exe running 95% cpu. I've just deleted my gmail account, but this isn't really a solution of course. Prior to that, I tried switching over from imap to pop, both via gmail settings and on the phone, but that didn't stop tmail from jamming up again upon manual send/receive. I'm sorry that I have nothing to add except more confirmation of the problem.
this problem was reported first in duttys rom thread.there is quite some discussion on that matter over there.it could be interesting to work on a solution here instead of in the rom thread.
user ny_limited has done some detective work already.maybe he can come over here.
Same problem on Xperia X1 runnning WM6.5 (826x rom).
T-Mobile forums thread on this issue.
Google Mobile forums thread on this issue.
XDA HD2 thread on this issue.
Just so we're clear, this is a problem with Google. They changed a bit of data within their IMAP processing at or around 1900 on 19 May 2011 EST. This is when the problems began rolling out. Google is the one that needs to fix the problem. It is in no way related to anyone's ROM.
To fix the problem temporarily, you can switch Gmail to use POP3 access instead of IMAP or set it up as an exchange server. The exchange server would consume far less battery than either IMAP or POP. Do a search for the settings. It's pretty simple.
EDIT: Google is aware of the problem and is working to fix it. Check the following thread for updates into the matter.
IMAP access from POutlook is randomly hanging - Windows Mobile 6.5.x
Temp Fix
I saw this in the Google thread and tested it. It works!!
In your mail configuration, go into manual setup and change the server address to POP.GMAIL.COM. Yes, IMAP works on pop address and it connects/disconnects correctly. ;)
EDIT: Google must have made a change because both addresses resolve to the same server. What was once a hard failure every time now seems to work for a while but some are reporting that it still eventually hangs tmail. Let's hope they're rolling out a fix...
Starting over from scratch solves the problem.
Either delete cemail.vol or do a hard reset. Seems that freshly configured Gmail accounts don't cause freezes.
Did this, now my Lion works like a charm again.
Update: deleting, soft resetting and reconfiguring all Gmail accounts also does the job.
justmeandmyphone said:
Starting over from scratch solves the problem.
Either delete cemail.vol or do a hard reset. Seems that freshly configured Gmail accounts don't cause freezes.
Did this, now my Lion works like a charm again.
Update: deleting, soft resetting and reconfiguring all Gmail accounts also does the job.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried this multiple times since Friday and the Gmail account still locks up after one or two attempts to send/receive.
Yeah, in the meantime i can confirm this. After a few hours tmail began freezing again.
I have this issue too; it's been going on for a while actually, but I have slightly different symptoms; initially it would be stuck at logging on, and I could press send receive to kick start it. At a later point in time, pressing send receive causes it to hang at disconnect. This persists across multiple hard resets, and occurs randomly.
Just this morning I cannot get it to work no matter what I do...
I confirmed tmail.exe eating 100% of the cpu, and there have been more than a few cases of my freshly charged battery near dead only a few hours later, with gmail "logging on".
And to whoever said imap uses more battery than activesync; get the imap pusher service. Uses less battery and you don't have to put up with activesync's crap
Same stuff today, Duttys v25 HD2 RUS. Missed my morning wakeup call, cause of it.
So, as a temporary fix, I created an account at Yahoo! and forwarded all mail from Gmail to it.
Update:
http://www.google.com/support/forum...869ff02960004a41d457a8bf4&hl=en did the trick!
Google fixed the issue.

[Q] Native mail application / Activesync / Exchange 2010 Battery Drain

Hi!
I just got a new Samsung Galaxy Skyrocket and have seen great battery life until I added my exchange 2010 / activesync email account to the phone, at which point the battery gets hot and drains very rapidly. I have seen some people comment that there is a fix if the phone is rooted, but are there any fixes for non-rooted phones? or Email programs besides the native email application that work with activesync? K9 only works with older versions of MS exchange.
Thanks!
Maybe due to push settings or the timed intervals in checking for new mail? I set mine to about 4 hours at a time. If they check constantly or every 30 mins, my battery will drain also. I do 4 hours, but you can always check emails manually, which I usually do.
I have it set to push my email. If I can't get this to work without only getting email when I manually check it, I will be forced to chose another phone since the ability to get push email was a breakthrough more than 5 years ago.
As an FYI, I spoke to samsung customer support (incredibly rude I might add), and was told that the device was not tested with Exchange 2010, and the only solution they had was factory reset (doesn't work) or sending the phone to them for a few days but they may not be able to fix it anyway.
Dont send to Samsung, they can't do anything with it. It'll just waste your time. I've currently got about 7 emails going through the native email application. I have it automatically check every 4 hours. I understand its not "push", but it's "push enough" for me. I only have 1 set for push (via gmail), but having the rest will be alerting me all day long. I dont want to be interrupted and have all my battery drain. 1 push is fine with me, not much battery drainage.
Yes, I didn't think sending it to samsung would be useful, especially since the guy could only tell me to restart my phone and that "there was no setting for don't overheat." I have 3 emails in K9 which works great, but K9 doesn't support exchange 2010 either which is why I had to set it up in the native mail app. The issue is that if there was one email I really would want to be pushed, it is my work email and not the 3 personal emails in K9 which I could check manually if I had to. I am finding K9 to be pretty amazing in terms of limited battery usage as an FYI.
jenn0123 said:
...The issue is that if there was one email I really would want to be pushed, it is my work email...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried setting that email up as a POP mail and have it sync every like 10 minutes or so? May just save some extra juice.
No can do. Apparently our exchange server can't be set up for POP (or so I was told).
I use push extensively with Exchange 2010 and have not had any problems. So I know it does work correctly. You could try going to the AT&T store to have yours replaced (the battery heating up for any reason when you're stock should be a sufficient reason). The only other possibility that comes to mind right away is data encryption. Do you have that turned on in your mailbox settings?
Data encryption is off. Any chance you can PM me with your settings and I can see if there's anything noticeably different in mine?
I can return to AT&T and exchange for a new one, but I had tried out the SGII prior to the Skyrocket and had some of the same heating up and battery drain (although not as badly) so I'm thinking it's probably a setting somewhere.
jenn0123 said:
Data encryption is off. Any chance you can PM me with your settings and I can see if there's anything noticeably different in mine?
I can return to AT&T and exchange for a new one, but I had tried out the SGII prior to the Skyrocket and had some of the same heating up and battery drain (although not as badly) so I'm thinking it's probably a setting somewhere.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure. Pm on the way...
Did your problem ever get resolved? I bought a Skyrocket last month and had the same exact problem with the battery getting hot and draining fast with ActiveSync on. It drained less quickly, but still 10-15% an hour, with active sync off. It was so bad I shipped the phone back after 3 days.
I'm thinking about trying again with a new Skyrocket, but I don't want to buy the phone unless I can get my work e-mail to push without killing the battery by lunch.
What worked for you (or did you have to ship it back too)?
Thanks!
Well, sort of. I have been using Enhanced Email instead of the mail that comes on the phone and it works great. I got tired of the native mail being fine and then not, so it was worth the $5 I paid for EE. I think I got a deal on Amazon apps at some point.

Google account drains battery

Hey XDA,
I have noticed excessive battery drain on my device (currently a OP3T, but had this same behavior on previous devices as well), no wakelocks though.
SystemPanel 2 shows this as "unaccounted" battery usage, which usually accounts for 50% of what's using the battery. It checks out, my phone dies after 2-2.5hours of SOT, which doubled is what is expectable from a 3T.
I've tried literally everything there is to try, nothing actually solved the issue. I made a nandroid, created a secondary/throwaway Google account, logged in, and boom, everything's working as intended.
As a sanity check, I set up an old Samsung device, first with my main Google account, then with the throwaway one, and noticed the same behavior.
Now I'm pretty sure this is like a one in a million case, but do you guys have any ideas what I should try and do with my main account that could help me solve the issue?
Much appreciated,
Lada

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