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[APPS] PowerTutor - Contacts and Messaging Destroying Battery?

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.

Enough Free Ram?

My razr maxx hd has been sluggish. When I checked running apps I found that sometimes it uses ALL available ram. The most free I ever see is about 38.
Is this normal? Any suggestions to improve performance?
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recDNA said:
My razr maxx hd has been sluggish. When I checked running apps I found that sometimes it uses ALL available ram. The most free I ever see is about 38.
Is this normal? Any suggestions to improve performance?
Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2
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It's normal for Android. It manages memory differently to Windows. Do some googling about Android memory management. What you need to look for is apps that are using CPU when they should be "asleep". An app like Android Assistant will allow you to look at that. Any app that's using more than, say, 1% cpu when it's not being used isn't playing ball and you should probably kill it. If it continues to do it, I would be removing the app.
Hope that helps

i think this is enough for your simple use , if you want to play games then not

I've seen that answer a lot, about how Android handles memory. Admitadley I haven't done any specific googling myslef. I have, however, observed how my my Linux boxes have handled it and after looking at the image posted I truly am going to be Googling Android specifically because it seems to me that it should free up memory before it gets to the point of the screenshot; can you imagine what the swap file looks like because it makes me wonder if it isn't full, assuming its a compressed RAM swap, and spilling over as a file on the card as well when things might be better already freed up at this point. If it was a desktop then I'd understand, but its a phone and you want a smooth experience out of it as much as can be provided. Its one thing to say "Learn how Android uses RAM" but I sure hope you do when you say it. As for me, I'll stop there and say that I really genuinley intend to find out (have the google search bookmarked for free time) because I know that my phone lags at times before it gets even close to what's posted, that I've never seen it get to what's posted, and that these setting can be easily changed on a rooted device... and that based upon experience with my previous Android that sported way more bloatware but a lot less lag, I've long been wondering if the settings could be just a little better. Usually its not a good idea to second guess the manufacturer but at the same time, a small change in a value can go a long way at times. Not saying you're wrong to say so, just saying that I hope you gave the answer as a person who genuinely understands for themselves and aren't just repeating others, lobie81.
All that said though, and knowing that my phone's ROM is supposed to be one of the more carrier bloat free varieties, what little I can see of the running services suggest that he might have a lot of things going that could be better handled by one process, like sticking it all in Tasker however that's a bold assumption based on a small portion of what's available to be seen.

[Q] Inactive YouTube drains a lot of battery

So of course I know YouTube uses a lot of battery when watching some video's, which I do a lot. This, however, isn't the problem I'm experiencing.
So lets say my phone is 100% charged and still on its charger, and I start watching a video or two. Then I close the app (still in multitask bar) and take it off the charger. I use my phone a bit, put it in my pocket and just forget about it. After a few minutes/hours battery has dropped almost 10% (depends on time). Checking battery stats shows YouTube using most of the battery, more than screen and other processes.
Here's a screenshot of today. Just normal battery usage, then i watched two 4 minute videos over WiFi, closed YouTube and put it away. Got about 10% drop in the following 30 minutes.
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Clearing the YouTube app from recents does get rid of the problem, but it seems that this is something unusual, and I hoped someone had a more permanent solution.
My device is running on stock rom with Franco kernel v50 (Vomer settings), although I've had this problem with earlier versions of Franco kernel with other settings. Furthermore I'm using Xposed with App Settings, AppOpsXposed, Gravitybox and Unicon. Using custom DPI for whole system and certain apps (using App Settings). If I forgot some crucial information I'll hear it.
I hope someone can help.

Reboot the device and see if the problem continues. It probably just got hung up the one time.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Free mobile app

from your screenshots, youtube doesnt look like your problem. it only used 18% of your battery thats already used, and only kept your phone awake for 2 and a half minutes. when you close an app in your app via the multitask bar, you arent actually closing the app(its the same as just backing out of the app). but google play services is taking much more battery than it should.

Greenify.

I had the same issue, but only happens sometimes. If you check FKU - CPU usage you'll notice sometimes it will be on four cores and as soon as you close it from recents it will revert back to two cores. Also happens on Instagram if im using it for a long time.

Rebooting won't fix anything, been having this problem for months now, just always cleared recents to avoid the drain. Plus its a consistent problem, i can predict it draining battery when i leave it open, and it stops draining when I remove it from recents. That's why I'm confused. I will try Greenify, and thanks for the tips everyone.
Still, I find it strange that, even though you say the drain can't be from YouTube, it's always YouTube causing the problem in the first place. And the thing about Google Play Services, mostly it's this high in the list. It reports 7m52s CPU and 43m11s Keep Awake right now (1hr after OP). Is this not good? What can I do to fix that?

[Q] Is there something wrong with our memory?

So I now have a Moto G 4G and previously had a Moto G dual sim and a s3 mini, all with 1GB of ram...
However, there is something seriously wrong with the ram on the moto G... The minfree is set to 300 MB and the phone gets to that point as a constant after about 2-3 days, making everything redraw worse than my optimus one...
I attached some screenshots...
Also, my cousin's nexus 4, with 2 gigs of ram, heavily bloated with useless background running apps by him, always has 1.5 gigs free ram... Can anyone figure this out? Is this happening in custom ROMs too?
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Sent from my XT1039

I have a Moto G 3G and I didn't face the issue you're pointing out at all. Are you using some kind of task killers or memory management apps? In case you do stop using them and let Android the way is ment to be working. You didn't mention anything in particular so my advice, for now, is reset it from recovery and see what appens. Good luck!

MeltingSnowman said:
I have a Moto G 3G and I didn't face the issue you're pointing out at all. Are you using some kind of task killers or memory management apps? In case you do stop using them and let Android the way is ment to be working. You didn't mention anything in particular so my advice, for now, is reset it from recovery and see what appens. Good luck!
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No task killer, and resetting doesn't work, did that a lot of times on the 3G version... Even changed firmwares... Always the same.
My problem is that chrome treats tabs as background processes, so when I run low on ram, they close even when on foreground....
Sent from my XT1039

I'm running greenify in boost mode only, no task killers, along with a ton of kids games, on my kids' moto g.
Some games will only play one time, and have to have data cleared to be playable again as restarting or clearing cache doesn't work.
Some other games are extremely laggy, or have frequent freezes/pauses in the middle of playing, or the touch becomes unresponsive.
Watching videos in youtube works fine for about 4 or 5 videos before they start to get choppy or it'll just crash back to homescreen.
It happened on stock rooted.
It's happening on newest Gummy.
I seriously have no idea what to do to fix this, and just told the kids to deal with it.

RAM Hog?

Is this normal RAM usage? I just got my phone today and have a minimum of apps installed on it. Also, what is the icon next to the 4G LTE icon?
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normal for a samsung lol

0dBu said:
Is this normal RAM usage? I just got my phone today and have a minimum of apps installed on it. Also, what is the icon next to the 4G LTE icon?
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Pretty much every Android device ends up essentially allocating nearly the maximum amount of a device's RAM to the OS itself. The OS then manages your various apps by utilizing that allocated RAM as well as scaling up or down its use of the RAM as necessary. So although it seems strange, there's actually more RAM available to apps than it appears.
Perfect normal.
As for the icon I don't know... NFC icon maybe?

There is a saying that goes a little like this "Free ram is wasted ram" and for the most part it is true.
Android is smart enough to deal with ram all on its own and unless you are noticing tab reloading or other issues with multitasking, you shouldn't care about the amount of "free" ram you have.
Also, icon next to your LTE icon is for NFC.
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I get that free RAM is wasted RAM and I'm not am Android noob, that just seemed excessive.

In my LG G2 before with 2 GB Ram I get 900mb user free and with my Note 3 before with 3 GB ram I get 1.9 GB user free RAM. I think this is excessive. Though I always root my device and use greenify with it but still.

If you know that free ram is wasted ram, instead of thinking it's excessive, you should be thinking "Why is there still 13% not being used?"

I have no issue with the phone using a ton of RAM, but I'm finding that when I'm in the car using Google Nav (foreground) and Pandora (background) together, will usually cause Pandora to close. The only time I've seent his before was when the memory leak was first introduced on my Nexus 5. Really odd stuff.