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TL: DR - Use Rescan Media, win.
So, I think that I've finally found the source of my constant stress regarding the battery life of my beautiful Samsung Captivate SGH-i897.
I know that a good majority of you have just rolled your eyes in disbelief, or just thought to yourself, "Great....another one of these threads".
If it helps one person get their battery life under control, then roll away.
I've had the phone for about 2-3 months and I've been active on these boards since a few days after getting it.
I've recalibrated, done the on / off / on / off trick, battery stats delete, deleted battery info from CWM, tried a second battery, used battery monitors on the phone, turned off wi-fi, turned off auto-synch, turned off bluetooth, lowered display brightness, and everything else I could think of to conserve juice.
Yesterday afternoon, I downloaded OSMonitor from the market in an effort to try another app in a long line of failures.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary so I was going to give up hope.
While installed, I had clicked on the box to monitor the app in the notification bar.
I noticed that I would have times where the CPU was being maxed but nothing strange was being reported in OSMonitor.
And then it hit me.....
The entire time I'm watching the OSMonitor, I'm being distracted by the media scanner.
It's running over and over and over and over and over.
When the screen shuts off after 30 seconds, it comes back on, the media scanner runs.
When I update something from the market, the media scanner runs.
When I close a program, the media scanner runs.
It is running constantly and maxing my CPU to 100%.
It finishes fairly quickly, (I have 9.4GB / 13GB available on internal and hardly anything used on my 4GB external SD card) but it just KEEPS....ON.....RUNNING.
I do a quick search, stumble upon the .nomedia file trick from XDA archives, and VOILA ! ! ! !
I'm losing about only one half of one percent per hour while it sits on standby, where I would sometimes lose 10-11% per hour, when the phone isn't even being used by me.
I went to bed last night with 48% at around 3:30am.
It is approx. 11 hours later right now.
I've made approx. 8-10 calls, checked my email a few dozen times, and mostly just let the phone sit.
I'm sitting at 39%.
Previous to doing this, I would have lost that amount in one hour.
So, for anyone who has a phone that is losing battery life like it's going out of style, I highly recommend doing the .nomedia fix.
I did mine using ES Explorer and Super Manager.
Go into your root folder and add a file named .nomedia, then go into your external SD folder and do the exact same thing.
If you do not want to do it this way, you can go the easy route and add a program called Rescan Media that does it for you.
(link supplied)
Hopefully this helps at least one lost soul, I'm so happy to see my phone behave more along the lines of what my expectations were and not have to be fully charged 2 times per day.
For the record, I've tried the following ROM's for the Cappy:
Perception
Phoenix
Assonance
Darkytt3r's port of Darky's ROM
Stock ROM (ODIN Rooted)
Cognition
And the following kernels:
Glitterballs
SpeedMod
SetiroN
Xcalibur
Will this not cause the media scanner to not pick up anything at all then?
IE no custom ringtones/msg alerts, nothing displayed in gallery, playlists wont work with the music player....
Or will it run media scanner selectively instead of all the time?
The only time I notice media scanner running is after rebooting the phone... yet I'm still only getting about 9-10 hours on a full charge with very conservative use.
evoic said:
TL: DR - Use Rescan Media, win.
So, I think that I've finally found the source of my constant stress regarding the battery life of my beautiful Samsung Captivate SGH-i897.
I know that a good majority of you have just rolled your eyes in disbelief, or just thought to yourself, "Great....another one of these threads".
If it helps one person get their battery life under control, then roll away.
I've had the phone for about 2-3 months and I've been active on these boards since a few days after getting it.
I've recalibrated, done the on / off / on / off trick, battery stats delete, deleted battery info from CWM, tried a second battery, used battery monitors on the phone, turned off wi-fi, turned off auto-synch, turned off bluetooth, lowered display brightness, and everything else I could think of to conserve juice.
Yesterday afternoon, I downloaded OSMonitor from the market in an effort to try another app in a long line of failures.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary so I was going to give up hope.
While installed, I had clicked on the box to monitor the app in the notification bar.
I noticed that I would have times where the CPU was being maxed but nothing strange was being reported in OSMonitor.
And then it hit me.....
The entire time I'm watching the OSMonitor, I'm being distracted by the media scanner.
It's running over and over and over and over and over.
When the screen shuts off after 30 seconds, it comes back on, the media scanner runs.
When I update something from the market, the media scanner runs.
When I close a program, the media scanner runs.
It is running constantly and maxing my CPU to 100%.
It finishes fairly quickly, (I have 9.4GB / 13GB available on internal and hardly anything used on my 4GB external SD card) but it just KEEPS....ON.....RUNNING.
I do a quick search, stumble upon the .nomedia file trick from XDA archives, and VOILA ! ! ! !
I'm losing about only one half of one percent per hour while it sits on standby, where I would sometimes lose 10-11% per hour, when the phone isn't even being used by me.
I went to bed last night with 48% at around 3:30am.
It is approx. 11 hours later right now.
I've made approx. 8-10 calls, checked my email a few dozen times, and mostly just let the phone sit.
I'm sitting at 39%.
Previous to doing this, I would have lost that amount in one hour.
So, for anyone who has a phone that is losing battery life like it's going out of style, I highly recommend doing the .nomedia fix.
I did mine using ES Explorer and Super Manager.
Go into your root folder and add a file named .nomedia, then go into your external SD folder and do the exact same thing.
If you do not want to do it this way, you can go the easy route and add a program called Rescan Media that does it for you.
(link supplied)
Hopefully this helps at least one lost soul, I'm so happy to see my phone behave more along the lines of what my expectations were and not have to be fully charged 2 times per day.
For the record, I've tried the following ROM's for the Cappy:
Perception
Phoenix
Assonance
Darkytt3r's port of Darky's ROM
Stock ROM (ODIN Rooted)
Cognition
And the following kernels:
Glitterballs
SpeedMod
SetiroN
Xcalibur
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So... exactly what did you do to solve the problem? can you describe how do you do the .nomedia fix?? I have exactly the same issue..
Hm, I haven't experienced that bad of a battery drain, but I installed the market app even though it said 2.2... maybe this will make my battery life better! Thanks for the tip.
It's running over and over and over and over and over.
When the screen shuts off after 30 seconds, it comes back on, the media scanner runs.
When I update something from the market, the media scanner runs.
When I close a program, the media scanner runs.
It is running constantly and maxing my CPU to 100%.
It finishes fairly quickly, (I have 9.4GB / 13GB available on internal and hardly anything used on my 4GB external SD card) but it just KEEPS....ON.....RUNNING.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you say the media scanner runs when doing all of these actions, does the Media Scanning icon show in the notification bar? If so, then I think it's just an issue with your phone cause I don't think that happens with anyone else's phone.
Unless you are saying that the media scanner runs in the background secretly after every action and there is no icon in the notification bar or anything? If so, I think you can be on to something.
GTIVRon said:
Will this not cause the media scanner to not pick up anything at all then?
IE no custom ringtones/msg alerts, nothing displayed in gallery, playlists wont work with the music player....
Or will it run media scanner selectively instead of all the time?
The only time I notice media scanner running is after rebooting the phone... yet I'm still only getting about 9-10 hours on a full charge with very conservative use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could just run Media Scanner manually. SwitchPro even gives you a button to initiate it. The only time Media Scanner runs automatically for me is when the phone boots (and probably some other infrequent times that I can't remember) so disabling automatic media scanning isn't much of a loss at all for me.
GTIVRon said:
Will this not cause the media scanner to not pick up anything at all then?
IE no custom ringtones/msg alerts, nothing displayed in gallery, playlists wont work with the music player....
Or will it run media scanner selectively instead of all the time?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm curious of the same thing. I've only seen the media scanner run when I restart or disconnect my SD card from my computer.
trekie86 said:
I'm curious of the same thing. I've only seen the media scanner run when I restart or disconnect my SD card from my computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
trying to get it working... ill report wassup after...
minlee85 said:
evoic said:
TL: DR - Use Rescan Media, win.
...
I did mine using ES Explorer and Super Manager.
Go into your root folder and add a file named .nomedia, then go into your external SD folder and do the exact same thing.
If you do not want to do it this way, you can go the easy route and add a program called Rescan Media that does it for you.
(link supplied)
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So... exactly what did you do to solve the problem? can you describe how do you do the .nomedia fix?? I have exactly the same issue..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll be nice... see the quoted paragraph that was in your quote?
Minlee, no need to quote an entire post, especially when you aren't responding to something in it directly.
As others have said, I only ever see Media Scanning in the Notification bar when I do a reboot. If it runs at other times it is transparent to the phone.
This is probably an issue specific to myself and a few others.
Someone above asked me if I saw a lot of activity in the background or if I actually saw the "Media Scanning" icon pop up in my notification bar.
The answer is that I saw the icon pop up and then watched it scan, over and over and over, all day long, dozens....if not hundreds of times.
That little fix, coupled with the battery calibration that I've done a few times, along with getting rid of some of the resource hogs that run in the background (Do I reeeeally need Google Maps to run 23 hours out of the day???) has given my Captivate new life.
evoic said:
This is probably an issue specific to myself and a few others.
Someone above asked me if I saw a lot of activity in the background or if I actually saw the "Media Scanning" icon pop up in my notification bar.
The answer is that I saw the icon pop up and then watched it scan, over and over and over, all day long, dozens....if not hundreds of times.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I've never seen that kind of behavior. I only see the scanning activity when I first boot and when I do something like take a picture or a screen shot.
So in my glallery, some of my images have doubled, and in my music list for selecting ringstones and such, it has tripled some of the songs, but only one of them works. Mediaserver has 48% percent on my battery drain and its taking more power than my screen is! Anyone know whats up with this?
I'm running AOKPS Alpha 2, but I noticed it was doing it last night when I was still on the Alpha.
I use quicpic for my pictures....no issues
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alensw.PicFolder
And google play for my music
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.music
This is actual issue with the media scanner. From what I've read it's an issue that can happen from a few things. I seem to have fixed it for now, I removed all the media files that were acting up. and it's gone back to it's normal amount of battery usage. I may just format my sdcard, then reinstall the ROM again
Sent from my SGH-I997 using XDA
Hey guys!
So I realize there are already a lot of topics on this on other phones, but not for the N5.
I've tried the solutions posted on the other phones but they don't seem to work.
Mediaserver seems to take a consistent 10-20% of my battery drain. When I reboot my phone, it jumps up to 30-40%, which is expected because the phone is scanning everything at boot. However, even after a few hours after, if I check the time on mediaserver, it still increases, meaning it's still being used.
My N5 is pretty bare, media wise. I have ~3 gigs of songs and like 50 pictures on it. I've tried removing all my pictures and music, but the mediaserver is still active and takes the same amount %.
I've tried Rescan Media root, but I'm guessing that's not compatible for 4.4 yet because it crashes every time I open it.
I've read that better battery stats can help identify it, but all I see on the stats are that mediaserver is taking up battery. I already knew that.
I've also read that mediaserver could be active due to an application, but the solutions associated to this problem involved uninstalling one app at a time and checking mediaserver; I don't have time for this method.
Anyways, any help would be greatly appreciated.
I am running the latest Cataclysm ROM and Faux kernels.
Thanks!
I want to add the information that during testing the drain times, I have not listened to music or played youtube, etc. Nothing media related.
Mediaserver will show up as the culprit even if it is an app you have installed.
i.e. I found my battery dead (at 11pm) which was odd for me, so I checked and saw mediaserver at 40% usage. I put on my detective hat and worked out it was a game I installed (Robot Unicorn 2), which is very poorly coded so that if you dont completely quit it (swipe it away), it will constantly be playing in the background, it will keep your device awake and constantly play music (that you cant hear).
You will have to work it out, or install a bettery battery app to work out which app it is.
Alright, I think I might be having some issues, and I was wondering what your battery life like?
I charged mine earlier this week, used it a little bit after I pulled it off the charger and have barely touched it since. This morning when I went to go and watcha Youtube Video, my tablet was completely dead. Now I used it about 2 days ago and it still had over a 40% charge. To me it seems odd that the tablet drained over 40% just sitting there for 2 days.
I checked the battery manager for some statistics and the most battery draining services were the Screen at 34%, Tablet Idle at 22% and Android OS at 18%. I am not sure if this is normal for the Shield Tablet or if I might have something stuck running in the background or might even have a defective unit.
So I guess my question for you guys other than what your battery life is like, is do you think this is normal? Or should I try a factory rest? Any other suggestions? Returning it to BestBuy is an option as I bought it about a week and a half ago.
Thanks for the tips
menendez1293 said:
Alright, I think I might be having some issues, and I was wondering what your battery life like?
I charged mine earlier this week, used it a little bit after I pulled it off the charger and have barely touched it since. This morning when I went to go and watcha Youtube Video, my tablet was completely dead. Now I used it about 2 days ago and it still had over a 40% charge. To me it seems odd that the tablet drained over 40% just sitting there for 2 days.
I checked the battery manager for some statistics and the most battery draining services were the Screen at 34%, Tablet Idle at 22% and Android OS at 18%. I am not sure if this is normal for the Shield Tablet or if I might have something stuck running in the background or might even have a defective unit.
So I guess my question for you guys other than what your battery life is like, is do you think this is normal? Or should I try a factory rest? Any other suggestions? Returning it to BestBuy is an option as I bought it about a week and a half ago.
Thanks for the tips
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd try to manage background applications with Greenify. You'd have some more options like BootManager if you have root. Don't worry, root will disappear upon factory reset if needed for returns. Besides those two controlling agents, there is a flashable MOD I discovered recently called ComoDose 3.5 here on XDA. With all three, my S3 hits the bed as soon as I turn off the screen, boosting idle time tremendously. You'd need to go a step further and install a custom recovery to try ComoDose; if you have any issue and need to return, there is already a guide here on how to get rid of it. So don't worry about that!
Most likely, your device just isn't going to sleep. I don't think it's unusual.
Settings > Shield Power Control > Apps tab:
Let Nvidia Optimize everything. It seems to end up saving me a ton of battery life. Using apps that don't need much power (like Cheezburger, G+, Udemy, Play Store, etc...), the Nvidia governor seems to handle the clocking very well. Then it cranks it up as needed with games (I bought a few that are listed in the Shield games thing).
You just need to remember to go in and optimize new apps that you install. By default it doesn't put a governor profile on them, so the apps just run as Android tells them to, instead of how Nvidia profiles them.
I've been charging my Shield Tablet about once every two days. That's maybe an hour of gaming a day, and a lot of web browsing, and various forum reading, and whatever other random stuff I do during the day.
The pre-installed app Camera Awesome installs a bunch of corrupt jpg's to internal storage. While they are their it causes the "media server" service to keep running constantly in a loop. Was so bad that while plugged in, my battery went down while actively using the tablet. Since I removed those corrupt jpg's the battery has been fine. So step 1, check for corrupt jpgs.
Harfainx said:
Settings > Shield Power Control > Apps tab:
Let Nvidia Optimize everything. It seems to end up saving me a ton of battery life. Using apps that don't need much power (like Cheezburger, G+, Udemy, Play Store, etc...), the Nvidia governor seems to handle the clocking very well. Then it cranks it up as needed with games (I bought a few that are listed in the Shield games thing).
You just need to remember to go in and optimize new apps that you install. By default it doesn't put a governor profile on them, so the apps just run as Android tells them to, instead of how Nvidia profiles them.
I've been charging my Shield Tablet about once every two days. That's maybe an hour of gaming a day, and a lot of web browsing, and various forum reading, and whatever other random stuff I do during the day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just did that this morning while it was on the charger, hopefully it makes a difference like it did to you.
daeymon said:
The pre-installed app Camera Awesome installs a bunch of corrupt jpg's to internal storage. While they are their it causes the "media server" service to keep running constantly in a loop. Was so bad that while plugged in, my battery went down while actively using the tablet. Since I removed those corrupt jpg's the battery has been fine. So step 1, check for corrupt jpgs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now that you mention it, I did have the media server service running and taking up battery. I guess I will delete the pictures I have and replace it with a different (Google) Camera. Thanks for the tip.
daeymon said:
The pre-installed app Camera Awesome installs a bunch of corrupt jpg's to internal storage. While they are their it causes the "media server" service to keep running constantly in a loop. Was so bad that while plugged in, my battery went down while actively using the tablet. Since I removed those corrupt jpg's the battery has been fine. So step 1, check for corrupt jpgs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its still too early to call but I think you hit the nail on the head with this one! I wasn't getting drain with the screen off but it was draining really fast with the screen on. Thank you so much for this suggestion of deleting these corrupt files because right now my battery is finally draining like it should.. nice and slow. Thank You!!
dukehazard77 said:
Its still too early to call but I think you hit the nail on the head with this one! I wasn't getting drain with the screen off but it was draining really fast with the screen on. Thank you so much for this suggestion of deleting these corrupt files because right now my battery is finally draining like it should.. nice and slow. Thank You!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How is your screen on before and after deleting the corrupt files? Would you mind posting screens or stats
Sent from my GT-I9505G using XDA Free mobile app
daeymon said:
The pre-installed app Camera Awesome installs a bunch of corrupt jpg's to internal storage. While they are their it causes the "media server" service to keep running constantly in a loop. Was so bad that while plugged in, my battery went down while actively using the tablet. Since I removed those corrupt jpg's the battery has been fine. So step 1, check for corrupt jpgs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
Where exactly on internal storage I can find those corrupted files?
I would like to give it a try.
Thanks in advance.
pghostek said:
Hi,
Where exactly on internal storage I can find those corrupted files?
I would like to give it a try.
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android/data/com.smugmug.android.cameraawesome
Check any sub folders in that folder as well.
There are apps you can get which will scan your device for corrupt image files too.
I'm not an android expert, so apologies if I say anything out of turn.
I think the .jpegs appeared to be corrupt as some of them might have been for the 'picture frames' of the camera awesome 'special effects'. Thus they are 'transparent' in the centre of the image.
I had some in the Android/data/com.smugmug.android.cameraawesome/downloads directory.
I read an article, which said if you add an empty .nomedia file to the directory it should stop the media service from reading from it.
Would adding that file not be enough to stop the media service, rather than deleting all the files?
Silverfox476 said:
I'm not an android expert, so apologies if I say anything out of turn.
I think the .jpegs appeared to be corrupt as some of them might have been for the 'picture frames' of the camera awesome 'special effects'. Thus they are 'transparent' in the centre of the image.
I had some in the Android/data/com.smugmug.android.cameraawesome/downloads directory.
I read an article, which said if you add an empty .nomedia file to the directory it should stop the media service from reading from it.
Would adding that file not be enough to stop the media service, rather than deleting all the files?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had similar problem. I deleted all the jpg files, infact deleted the entire folder,Android/data/com.smugmug.android.cameraawesome/downloads directory. However, everytime i opened camera app, the folder generated itself (check in ES file explorer). Better option is to disable the app (you cant delete as its a system app) and use google camera or any other camera of choice. My battery life has increased (screen on and off) i get about 4 hours of screen on time (lot of browsing, drawing, you tube and 40 mins of gaming). Its not as much as others are getting. Also i am not rooted. On a side note Lollipop is coming in couple of days, it should alleviate some battery issues.''
I have a problem with battery life. Was at 100% this morning 11am, now it is 3h20 pm and there is only 58% remaining.
The problem is it was in my bag between this morning and now and it has not been used... WiFi is set to be off while screen is off, and is not available for location when wifi deactivated. Nvidia camera is disabled. I will do a factory reset to see how it goes...
If I go to battery menu : it show only one line : screen, 1%, which of course is impossible.
EDIT : ok, it is unusable with such battery life... Since I bought it yesterday, I decided to do a factory reset and to NOT restore anything from other devices.
I'm currently charging it and will make a report later.
Judge584 said:
I have a problem with battery life. Was at 100% this morning 11am, now it is 3h20 pm and there is only 58% remaining.
The problem is it was in my bag between this morning and now and it has not been used... WiFi is set to be off while screen is off, and is not available for location when wifi deactivated. Nvidia camera is disabled. I will do a factory reset to see how it goes...
If I go to battery menu : it show only one line : screen, 1%, which of course is impossible.
EDIT : ok, it is unusable with such battery life... Since I bought it yesterday, I decided to do a factory reset and to NOT restore anything from other devices.
I'm currently charging it and will make a report later.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
EDIT 2: time to RMA. Yesterday : a factory reset, no google account configured and charged at 100% , airplane mode. 8hours later ( this morning) , shield shutdown itself during night. So bad.
Judge584 said:
EDIT 2: time to RMA. Yesterday : a factory reset, no google account configured and charged at 100% , airplane mode. 8hours later ( this morning) , shield shutdown itself during night. So bad.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you on lollipop or kitkat?
Lollipop. Is that the problem ?
Judge584 said:
Lollipop. Is that the problem ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I Still dunno. I'm waiting to be able to flash the kitkat firmware. I bought shield 3 days ago registered to nvidia dev site just today. Let's see
I bought it Wednesday and received 4 OTA updates without registering to dev site
Judge584 said:
I bought it Wednesday and received 4 OTA updates without registering to dev site
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So it worked as intended lol I need to be registered and agreed to dev site to be able to download the firmwares
But do you have same problem as me?
I've not had any battery issues and I'm running Lollipop.
I have set my screen brightness to Auto (Screen On uses up a lot of juice).
Using the "Shield Power Mode" I've set the "Processor Mode" to "Optimise".
Under the Advanced Wifi options I've turned off "Network Notification", I've left "Scanning Always available" on, and set "Keep Wifi on during sleep" to "Only when plugged in".
Finally in Android/data/com.smugmug.android.cameraawesome/downloads I've made sure there is the empty .nomedia file.
Can anyone shed light on this wakelock? It says almost 3 hours audio on? I have played no music today at all. ??
I have a mediaserver wakelock also not sure why
Same. I resorted to a factory reset and it's still not 100% gone, but it is like 90% gone.
That is a media scanner. A corrupt file or app apparently has it hung up and it keeps scanning.
same here with int. s6
is there a way to find corrupted files on internal sd?
I format my phone, Clean installation. No personal files, no apps... and mediaserver is here at 73% of battery use. I use Gsam
This info is a little old but it might be worth a shot.
http://geeknizer.com/fix-android-media-server-scanner-sdcard-cpu-battery-drain/