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I was lurking over at the sprint hero board and came across an interesting thread. People are noticing an increase in battery life when the set the wifi settings for sleep to Never.
Seems like what is happening, as soon as the phone blanks out, WIFI is turned of and the phone is switched to EVDO mode. which drains battery. If your in a bad coverage area your battery drains even faster.
Some people are talking about a performance increase as well, but I think what they are seeing is the phone not having to cycle back to wifi everytime they touch the phone.
Treefallingquietly said:
I was lurking over at the sprint hero board and came across an interesting thread. People are noticing an increase in battery life when the set the wifi settings for sleep to Never.
Seems like what is happening, as soon as the phone blanks out, WIFI is turned of and the phone is switched to EVDO mode. which drains battery. If your in a bad coverage area your battery drains even faster.
Some people are talking about a performance increase as well, but I think what they are seeing is the phone not having to cycle back to wifi everytime they touch the phone.
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Interesting, but is this for those who always have wifi enabled (I never use it)? I'll try anything to get more from my battery since I can barely squeeze out about a day (18 hours) from my phone even with the sms workaround implemented.
I'm looking in the wifi settings and don't see any options for "wifi sleep".
katmandu421 said:
Interesting, but is this for those who always have wifi enabled (I never use it)? I'll try anything to get more from my battery since I can barely squeeze out about a day (18 hours) from my phone even with the sms workaround implemented.
I'm looking in the wifi settings and don't see any options for "wifi sleep".
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Here is the link: http://community.sprint.com/baw/thread/24324?tstart=0
Basically, when you are in an area that has spotty coverage, your battery will drain quicker because its always roaming and trying for service. I get this in the Texas Hill country. So if you have wifi and are in a bad location, whenever your wifi sleeps, it goes back to EV. I think just the nature of this connection is hard on the battery. hence using Wifi as much as possible.
Another option is to use APNdroid or something like it to disable the EVDO when you're not using it. Push notifications don't always come through that way or can be slow coming, but if you know your phone is just going to sit there you can conserve a lot of power this way. Turning off GPS, WiFi and EVDO I was able to squeeze out almost 3 days of usage when I was using the phone sparingly. If you're enabling those connections only when you need them, making it through the day should be no problem if you're not constantly using the device.
If your connected to wifi and using it, are you gonna get better battery life VS being connected to either 3g or 4g/hspa+?
and Why if so?
Shoot im sorry, this shouldnt be in this forum. I thought I was in the general questions forums. MY bad people. Please move mods.
smashpunks said:
Shoot im sorry, this shouldnt be in this forum. I thought I was in the general questions forums. MY bad people. Please move mods.
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This is the General forum. To answer your question, Yes it would use less battery on WiFi. On a data connection the signal is not a constant and the phone is always looking for a stronger signal.
Thanks, thats what I thought. And ive noticed that connected to wifi my battery lasts a lot longer.
smashpunks said:
Thanks, thats what I thought. And ive noticed that connected to wifi my battery lasts a lot longer.
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yes. And 4g eats your battery.
When I am only using the phone for data, I use WiFi when available. I turn on airplane mode then activate WiFi.
I don't know about that... when I'm on wifi my battery drains like a mofo. Weapon 3.0 ICS theme faux 1.3 kernel.
On every ROM and Kernel I've tried, Wi-Fi uses much, much less battery than 4G. I haven't tried any of the toggles / battery saving apps though so I'm not sure what effect those might have.
NeKr0MAtiK said:
I don't know about that... when I'm on wifi my battery drains like a mofo. Weapon 3.0 ICS theme faux 1.3 kernel.
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Do you disable data when you use wifi?
buru898 said:
Do you disable data when you use wifi?
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He shouldn't have to. If he's draining faster on WiFi then something is screwy with his setup.
On stock, cyanogenmod 7.1, and cyanogenmod 7.1 with various other kernels I've experienced increased battery drain with wi-fi on and connected with the phone sitting at home the entire day. Turn off wi-fi and let it just use the data connection to T-Mobile and I get drastically increased battery times. I'm assuming those of you who get better battery with wi-fi on are in extremely bad signal areas. Also, if you're on cyanogenmod have you turned off the auto wi-fi disconnect when sleeping feature? If you haven't then your battery life when sleeping should be the same as that of wi-fi turned off.
Wi-fi should always be priority if your in range.
Well my personal experience has been that wi-fi eats up battery like crazy. Same thing happens to the other smartphone users I know around here so I was surprised to see that people get better battery times with wi-fi on. Are you guys completely turning off your cellular radio? I don't like the quality and slight delay of wi-fi calling so my cellular radio stays on when I have wi-fi on.
I don't usually notice much difference between wifi and 3g battery drain here (no 4G for tmo here).
As someone already posted, my drain is worst when 3g signal is poor, like when I'm at work and the metal building interferes with everything.
Have you tried checking logs while connected to wifi to see if maybe some app or service goes crazy?
Nothing fishy going on when wi-fi is on. I get about 10-14 hours on battery with wi-fi on and next to no use of the phone vs somewhere around 20+ hours with wi-fi off and similar extremely light use. I keep meaning to do some more standardized testing where I literally don't touch the phone but life gets in the way and I have to make/answer a call or txt or whatever so I can't nail down any hard numbers. Typical experience on a slow day for me is that if I forget my wi-fi is on, my battery will be somewhere in the 3-5% range when I'm getting ready for bed while if I hadn't left it on, I can go to sleep and wake up and it'll still be hanging in there.
GTWalling said:
This is the General forum. To answer your question, Yes it would use less battery on WiFi. On a data connection the signal is not a constant and the phone is always looking for a stronger signal.
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That's true, I've always believed that Wifi eats battery faster because someone(don't remember who) always told me that Wifi uses more battery because it processes data faster, but I always noticed that when I used 4g, it drains a lot faster.
I always blamed it on the ROM, but I can see that it's not the ROM's fault.
OK, so my wife and I both have GS3's through T-Mobile and our batteries last very long. I'm a heavy user and get a fully day while my wife is a light user and easily get's two days. My Mom on the other hand has her GS3 through Verizon and her battery is dying in roughly half a day. She is not a heavy user at all. In fact, her old Droid 2 would last longer than her GS3 which really has her frustrated.
I think it may be due to the fact she doesn't get a good 4G signal at work and at home. In fact, she gets 1 bar at work if she's lucky. She also said the phone is constantly bouncing back and forth between 3G and 4G while at work. She took it to Verizon today and they swapped SIM cards to be sure that wasn't the problem. Obviously that didn't work because I'm posting here. I will see her on Thursday and she want's me to look at her phone.
Do you guy's think this is most likely the reason as to why her battery is draining so fast? Also, if it is. Would there be a way I can show her how to disable 4G so her battery lasts longer?
It's most likely 3G and 4G switching back and forth or a rogue app. For to turn off the 4G it can't be done without rooting I'm pretty sure.
No, it's because you have task running. I had the same thing happen to me. If you exit an application by pressing home, the program will continue to run in the background. I had gallery take up 38% of my battery life. If you press the back button, it will FC the application.
Good bye HTC Rezound, hello Galaxy S3!
jrwingate6 said:
OK, so my wife and I both have GS3's through T-Mobile and our batteries last very long. I'm a heavy user and get a fully day while my wife is a light user and easily get's two days. My Mom on the other hand has her GS3 through Verizon and her battery is dying in roughly half a day. She is not a heavy user at all. In fact, her old Droid 2 would last longer than her GS3 which really has her frustrated.
I think it may be due to the fact she doesn't get a good 4G signal at work and at home. In fact, she gets 1 bar at work if she's lucky. She also said the phone is constantly bouncing back and forth between 3G and 4G while at work. She took it to Verizon today and they swapped SIM cards to be sure that wasn't the problem. Obviously that didn't work because I'm posting here. I will see her on Thursday and she want's me to look at her phone.
Do you guy's think this is most likely the reason as to why her battery is draining so fast? Also, if it is. Would there be a way I can show her how to disable 4G so her battery lasts longer?
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I'm on verizon as well and I find that my battery dies extremely fast. Full charge in the morning and by bedtime its just about dead, that's with moderate use. Some things that I have found to help is I generally keep bluetooth, and gps off unless I need either. I keep power saving mode on, and really minimized what Sync's through my accounts.
It's not exactly the answer you were looking for but it should help you until a more long term solution can be figured out.
Does anyone know how to turn 4G off?
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium
Low tower signal will kill the battery very fast. Frustratingly fast. I have Verizon GS3, have very low signal at work, and I burn 8% battery per hour when phone is idle. With almost no use, my battery is down to 30% by time I go home.
At home I have good tower signal and my battery drops very slow in idle, maybe 1% per hour. At both work and home I have WiFi connected and set to keep WiFi on during sleep always. Therefore I don't think it's data traffic / sync causing the issue. Instead its hyperactive radio hardware or firmware killing itself as it constantly finds/loses tower connection. The only thing I've been able to find to reduce the drain is going into airplane mode... which is obviously a terrible option.
Hope Samsung can improve this self devouring nature in the future!
jrwingate6 said:
Does anyone know how to turn 4G off?
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium
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go to the playstore and download "phone info" open it and go to device information
Swith the " lte/cdma/evdo" into cdma auto (PRL)
I also turn off 4g at work due to weak signal
VERIZON GALAXY S 3
I believe its a signal search at where she spends most of her time. At my work the signal is very bad and the phone goes from 100% to 20% in 10 hours without even touching the phone. Now I turn on airplane mode and it never drops the battery.
She can disable the data and find out how much that would save her
First make sure it's not a rogue app by going into Settings -> Battery, your top 2 battery usages should be Screen and Cell Standby. As long as you don't have some random app eating away at your battery then it's definitely signal strength related. Does she have Wi-Fi available at work? If so make sure she connects to it. I have a Verizon S3 and the battery life on this phone is better than any Android phone I've ever owned (and I've had a lot). I leave GPS and Bluetooth on all day and can easily get a full day with mid to heavy usage. The biggest thing would be to get her on Wi-Fi if available. This will stop the phone from constantly trying to poll data off a poor signal and significantly increase battery life. If no Wi-Fi available, then the above post would come into play, Phone Info app and switch into cdma to keep it locked into 3g will help, but only if there's a decent 3g signal. If the 3g signal is weak also, then you're not going to help anything, and she will just need to remember to turn data sync off while she's at work.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
Try switching batteries to see if she has a defective battery. If thats not the case, then make Verizon give her a replacement S3.
Add me to the list of people who think its the signal search in low service areas.. I disabled 4G with the Phone Info app and my phone lasted way longer than before..
Since you pointed out she has a low signal, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the culprit..
Sent from my Commodore 64..
READY.
load"*",8,1
Pagaldesi4life said:
Try switching batteries to see if she has a defective battery. If thats not the case, then make Verizon give her a replacement S3.
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This is what I did, kept the old battery too...then they swapped me for a w S3. My battery is doing much better now.
The5Venomz said:
This is what I did, kept the old battery too...then they swapped me for a w S3. My battery is doing much better now.
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Ahhh so it wasn't the battery itself?
When you got a replacement S3, did you go back to the same store where you had originally purchased them from or tried a different store?
I disabled 4G today at work with my stinky cell signal and my battery nose dived like usual. Therefore, if you have no signal, 3G/4G doesn't seem to matter. The radio hardware will still destroy itself happily.
Anyone know of a widget my Mom could use to disable data completely while she is at work?
jrwingate6 said:
Anyone know of a widget my Mom could use to disable data completely while she is at work?
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Pull the task drawer down and uncheck mobile data. Why do you need a widget?
You might have a system process called "gsiff_daemon" draining the battery. I have that problem and others have reported that process has been draining their battery as well. Or it could be other have mentioned already, signal switching, rogue programs, etc.
Today at work I ran with mobile data off. I still had a really bad battery drain. Therefore the voice 3 g radio must be responsible. Not much we can do about that unless a new firmware comes out.
Another battery tip...
Scrappy1 said:
Today at work I ran with mobile data off. I still had a really bad battery drain. Therefore the voice 3 g radio must be responsible. Not much we can do about that unless a new firmware comes out.
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There's also an option in the settings>developer options to restrict how many processes are running in the background, and to kill an app after leaving it. The only problem I've noticed with the second option is that the fb app won't allow you to post a status, I think because it causes it to start a new activity, which kills the main fb activity when you leave it. But limiting the background stuff seems to have saved some more juice on top of only using 3g.
getheart mcliar said:
There's also an option in the settings>developer options to restrict how many processes are running in the background, and to kill an app after leaving it. The only problem I've noticed with the second option is that the fb app won't allow you to post a status, I think because it causes it to start a new activity, which kills the main fb activity when you leave it. But limiting the background stuff seems to have saved some more juice on top of only using 3g.
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Naw man, at home I have good cell signal and have almost no idle drain. At work I have terrible signal and it drains like nuts. It's not an issue with apps, processes, services, etc.
Hi all
Im trying to find a way to make my nexus 5 automatically disable my 3g connection when i connect to my home WiFi, as i have horrendous 3g signal in my home and i think its affecting battery life.
Any ideas?
Thanks
You can always shut it off manually. I personally use Llama, to automate it everything
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
You can turn it off manually. I believe it stops you from sending pictures and receiving pictures through text though.
As for battery life, I don't think it would change anything since it's using WiFi for data as a Primary.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
if you are in WiFi, battery drain shouldnt be a problem.. all data will be routed via wifi and only voice and SMS/MMS would come via cell tower...
i suggest wakelock detector to see whats using the most battery
As suggested... If WiFi is on, a week signal won't drain your battery. WiFi off, then of course it will.
Sent from my N5, N7, Moto X, G Tab 3 or S2.....
This actually happens automatically. However doing it yourself does seem to be a quick fix for some WiFi related issues. Tasker or Llama if you think it will help.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
As mentioned: mobile DATA is turned off when wifi is connected.
You don't want to turn off the mobile radio entirely, as then you cannot receive phone calls or texts.
If you're in a low signal area, you'll have a small hit to battery life from this, but it's not anywhere near as bad as not using wifi.
but changing the radio to Edge or 3G when on WiFi should be better for battery life right?
I use the smart radio setting in cataclysm and I think it actually helps a little (indoors I get 2 bars of LTE on average vs 4 on 3G).
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
raul90 said:
but changing the radio to Edge or 3G when on WiFi should be better for battery life right?
I use the smart radio setting in cataclysm and I think it actually helps a little (indoors I get 2 bars of LTE on average vs 4 on 3G).
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
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No, as it's not using the data services. It's only maintaining base voice capability.
raul90 said:
but changing the radio to Edge or 3G when on WiFi should be better for battery life right?
I use the smart radio setting in cataclysm and I think it actually helps a little (indoors I get 2 bars of LTE on average vs 4 on 3G).
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
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I'm not sure what others are talking about but from personal experience changing from 3g to 2g whilst on wifi did help battery life. People in this thread appear to forget the fact that even without data enabled, poor 3g/LTE signal will still drain more battery compared with having a strong 2G/3G signal as your phone's radio requires more power to maintain connection for base functionality (calls, texts).
daniel.kusy said:
I'm not sure what others are talking about but from personal experience changing from 3g to 2g whilst on wifi did help battery life. People in this thread appear to forget the fact that even without data enabled, poor 3g/LTE signal will still drain more battery compared with having a strong 2G/3G signal as your phone's radio requires more power to maintain connection for base functionality (calls, texts).
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If the phone is on WiFi, battery life is not affected much by whatever you switch your connection to. On data, then sure...signal issues are a big factor.
Switching from this to that to this while WiFi is on is really a lot of trouble for maybe a slight difference in battery life. ?
Sent from my N5, N7, Moto X, G Tab 3 or S2.....
kj2112 said:
If the phone is on WiFi, battery life is not affected much by whatever you switch your connection to. On data, then sure...signal issues are a big factor.
Switching from this to that to this while WiFi is on is really a lot of trouble for maybe a slight difference in battery life. ?
Sent from my N5, N7, Moto X, G Tab 3 or S2.....
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I completely agree with you on the fact that with data enabled on a poor 3G connection, your battery's gonna drain pretty quickly. After doing more research I found that changing from 3G to 2G can reduce power usage of the radio quite considerably (apparently up to 50% when in voice/sms mode only). Now as great as that all sounds, that's only around 50% power usage of the radio and I have no idea how much battery the radio actually uses during idle.. Looking at google's specifications it seems like the radio uses a pretty insignificant amount of battery when in idle (300 hours or so) so a 50% saving in idle radio probably wouldn't make nearly as much difference as say a more contributing factor to battery drain like screen on time or cpu usage. So yeah, I guess I gotta agree with kj2112 here, It's pretty negligible in the grand scheme of things if you're actually using your phone with wifi connected.
Interesting source if anyone was curious and wanted to learn more about radio affecting battery life: http://www.speedguide.net/faq_in_q.php?qid=362
daniel.kusy said:
I completely agree with you on the fact that with data enabled on a poor 3G connection, your battery's gonna drain pretty quickly. After doing more research I found that changing from 3G to 2G can reduce power usage of the radio quite considerably (apparently up to 50% when in voice/sms mode only). Now as great as that all sounds, that's only around 50% power usage of the radio and I have no idea how much battery the radio actually uses during idle.. Looking at google's specifications it seems like the radio uses a pretty insignificant amount of battery when in idle (300 hours or so) so a 50% saving in idle radio probably wouldn't make nearly as much difference as say a more contributing factor to battery drain like screen on time or cpu usage. So yeah, I guess I gotta agree with kj2112 here, It's pretty negligible in the grand scheme of things if you're actually using your phone with wifi connected.
Interesting source if anyone was curious and wanted to learn more about radio affecting battery life: http://www.speedguide.net/faq_in_q.php?qid=362
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If it did make a big difference on WiFi....I'd have terrible battery life at home. There is no 2g on my carrier and my signal at home is horrible. But, I get over 24 hours and 6 plus screen hours always, whether at home (on WiFi always...and usually one bar of radio inside) or at work on LTE.
So for me, the weak signal does next to nothing to my battery.....while on WiFi. WiFi off, I get half those times at home.
Sent from my N5, N7, Moto X, G Tab 3 or S2.....
kj2112 said:
If it did make a big difference on WiFi....I'd have terrible battery life at home. There is no 2g on my carrier and my signal at home is horrible. But, I get over 24 hours and 6 plus screen hours always, whether at home (on WiFi always...and usually one bar of radio inside) or at work on LTE.
So for me, the weak signal does next to nothing to my battery.....while on WiFi. WiFi off, I get half those times at home.
Sent from my N5, N7, Moto X, G Tab 3 or S2.....
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I'm not doubting you there, I pretty much summarised why in my previous post. When the radio is idling (connected to wifi) it's using a very small amount of power. Hence why it doesn't make much of a difference reducing an already very small power draw.
I have always used Better Battery Stats to monitor battery life and wakelocks, etc, but without root it's stats are limited. It does show how much time the phone "sleeps", and so far my phone is "awake" 100% of the time. I initially enabled almost everything but am wondering if everyone is experiencing the same?
I'm having cell standby battery drain
Yep same. Phone refuses to sleep. Probably the cause of battery drain. Hoping they release some sort of update to fix that.
sgtmedeiros said:
I'm having cell standby battery drain
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I'm sorry... I'm posting this from memory... But I think I saw somewhere that this is caused by the voice over Wi-Fi. In your phone settings turn off calls over Wi-Fi or something like that.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
stanfna said:
I'm sorry... I'm posting this from memory... But I think I saw somewhere that this is caused by the voice over Wi-Fi. In your phone settings turn off calls over Wi-Fi or something like that.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
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I had heard that as well in the main S6 forum but I don't see a wifi calling option on the vzw variant. Am I missing that or is it only present on the international version?
iowabowtech said:
I had heard that as well in the main S6 forum but I don't see a wifi calling option on the vzw variant. Am I missing that or is it only present on the international version?
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I think it's called VoLTE or something. I'm still waiting on my 128gb version so I can't check for you.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
VoLTE is Verizon's HD voice. Don't know how that would cause cell standby issue. I'm having issue as well and it sucks.
maverick96 said:
VoLTE is Verizon's HD voice. Don't know how that would cause cell standby issue. I'm having issue as well and it sucks.
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Right, its not enabled by default either so I'd think that rules it out as a culprit.
Something is certainly going on though to have these high cell standby times. May require an update from the powers that be to fix this. Aside from disabling everything on the phone which isn't happening.
But if its a big that's prevalent in the tmobile version as well, it may very well be the same bug depending on how Verizon chopped the feature from the software.
nateohio said:
But if its a big that's prevalent in the tmobile version as well, it may very well be the same bug depending on how Verizon chopped the feature from the software.
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Yeah it seems likely it's an issue that will be fixed across the board if it does get fixed. I'm hoping it happens in the first 14 days while I'm in trial, cuz otherwise I'm not sure if I'll keep it or not. Strange thing is some people seem way less affected though. And that's coming from a guy that typically has full or near full bars at both work and home so I'm certainly not in a fringe area by any means. Idk?
I have full bars all the time data disabled and I still get it
I had cell standby issues all weekend. Last night I turned off VoLTE ("Advanced Calling") on mine, and turned off cell data altogether while at home on Wifi. I was going to test it all day today like that, but this morning I thought, "No, this is dumb, if I can't use VoLTE the phone is worthless as I need simultaneous voice/data". So I turned it all back on, and Cell Standby isn't even on my battery life screen now. And it's had plenty of time to show up... Right now I'm at 50% battery life, 1.5 hours SOT, and 6 hours on battery total. My problem is Google Play Services is killing me - also a new problem since yesterday, and I have no idea what's behind it.
Cell standby is eating my lunch (and battery), too. 20% of my battery utilization, and my phone is running hot. The latter makes me think it's some app causing both the consumption and the heat, but darned if I know why.
jimbobtexas said:
Cell standby is eating my lunch (and battery), too. 20% of my battery utilization, and my phone is running hot. The latter makes me think it's some app causing both the consumption and the heat, but darned if I know why.
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It seems there are two things that might fix that - turning off wifi completely, and wiping cache (boot into recovery [vol-up + home + power]). Have you tried either of those yet?
jntdroid said:
It seems there are two things that might fix that - turning off wifi completely, and wiping cache (boot into recovery [vol-up + home + power]). Have you tried either of those yet?
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Click to collapse
No wifi isn't really an option, so I've wiped cache. I'll report back. Thanks!
Reporting back: no difference. This is a bug, as reported many places. Might be a deal-breaker for me, coupled with the prospect of no root. Might have to swap to the Motorola device.