Well, okay, nothing really about space aliens and robots, but you're here reading, aren't you?
Lots of discussion about pro/con of the EXT4 filesystem, risks to data integrity without journaling (analogous to a transaction log for a database), the disappearance of the reboot option on Bonsai (and maybe other ROMs) because of this, blah blah blah this, blah blah that, and on and on and on.
There is another solution. You can still have the performance of EXT4, without journaling. With much lower risk to your data in case of the battery leaping out of the phone on a whim. And good ol' reboot can make a comeback too!
The nirvana is a linux command called 'sync'. Crusty old unix hacks like me will get a twinkle in their eye at the mention of this command.
sync does somesthing very straightforward and simple: It syncs the filesystems. Put another way, it flushes the in-ram buffers out to "disk", syncronizing the actual state of the filesytem with what is stored -- and stale -- in secondary storage (hard discs on the big boys, NVRAM/SD/whatever on phones).
I've been experimenting with this to see if I can improve data integrity while minimally impacting performance. Here's what I've done:
Using GScript Lite, created a simple Superuser script for rebooting that looks like,
sync
sync
sync
/sbin/reboot #Bonsai ROM
Why 3 syncs? Paranoid. Nothing more.
Optionally create a shortcut on the homescreen to invoke this script to easy one-button reboot. I did this a week ago, have been using this to reboot Bonsai 4.0.0 a gazillion (actually, a bazillion, but I'm rounding) times, and have had absolutely no problems at all. Seems to work.
Created a shell script that launches at boot, as superuser, that runs in an infinite loop waking up every 10 seconds to do a sync. No detectable impact on performance that I can see. This is what I'd expect, as there is never more than 10 seconds of filesystem activity sitting "dirty" in the cache, so the sync doesn't usually have much to do (most of the time, nothing).
What does all this mean? Well, it's sort of a "lazy" journaling, and much more efficient. There's still a higher risk of data corruption under uncontrolled loss of power than with journaling, but in my considered opinion its negligible with the usage model/patterns for this particular situation (a smartphone).
FWIW, before I implemented this method for reboot, I like others got FCs on apps randomly after using the 3-finger reboot, simply running reboot directly from a shell prompt, or back on Bonsai 3, using the power-button menu reboot command. With this sync approach, I have not had a single problem -- and I can reboot the phone again easily!
What this means for you
If you're enough of a hack to understand how to implement this stuff yourself, give it a shot (at your own risk!), and let us know how it works out.
For the rest of you, be patient... I'm putting together a package to make it simple to install all this (initially just for the Bonsai ROM, others to follow, maybe), and should have something to test in a day or two. If you're interested in being a tester, PM me. Looking for 10 people.
I'm interested in this as I have been wondering about no_journaling for some time. I think it would help to prove or disprove the theory that no_journaling is causing data corruption. PM sent.
This is very interesting. I'll be watching this - depending on the results, it may be a good option for future versions of SRF.
I think a mod should move this thread over into the Development forum, please?
This sounds interesting. So will this "lazy" journaling put the same or less wear on the nand chip vs journaling being enabled?
If it has the same or similar wear factor as no journaling, as well as no impact on performance. Then this mod is a no brainer IMO.
Does sync only cause a write operation for data that has changed, or simply rewrite the entire buffer to disk each time? I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this...
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
It's better than nothing, but it still doesn't address battery pulls or phone freezes. It just provides a more graceful shutdown IF you do a clean shutdown.
dwallersv said:
Using GScript Lite, created a simple Superuser script for rebooting that looks like,
sync
sync
sync
/sbin/reboot #Bonsai ROM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried this on my phone and so far, so good. I am using ACS Frozen Rom 1.1.0 with Twilight 1.1.0. When I downloaded the GScript lite, there was already a script for reboot, I just edited it to add the sync lines. I assume that the #Bonsai ROM is a comment and not needed, so that was omitted. I have rebooted about 10 times (I know...many, many less than a Gazillion) and have not had any issues.
Thank you!
epic4GEE said:
This sounds interesting. So will this "lazy" journaling put the same or less wear on the nand chip vs journaling being enabled?
If it has the same or similar wear factor as no journaling, as well as no impact on performance. Then this mod is a no brainer IMO.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In terms of the precise impact on storage, it is indistinguishable from not doing it at all. All this does if change the timing of the writes -- you control it, rather than waiting for the OS to decide to flush the filesystem buffers.
In the case of a reboot, this makes a ginormous difference, because anything in cache that hasn't been flushed is lost if the system doesn't sync before quitting back into the bootloader.
Sent from my mind using telepathitalk
styles420 said:
Does sync only cause a write operation for data that has changed, or simply rewrite the entire buffer to disk each time? I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
only dirty blocks.
sync should not cause anything to be written that wouldn't be eventually written anyway, when the kernel decides it is either idle enough to perform the deferred task, or cache "fullness" requires it to make room for newer data by flushing older stuff that hadn't been written yet.
Sent from my mind using telepathitalk
poit said:
It's better than nothing, but it still doesn't address battery pulls or phone freezes. It just provides a more graceful shutdown IF you do a clean shutdown.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True on the reboot mod.
On the monitor, though, it can make a big difference in the case of catastrophe. The FS cache is never more than 10 seconds out of sync with the underlying NV secondary storage. Depending on the usage model, this may be enough to reduce risk significantly.
The interval, of course, is configurable. The monitor could sync every second, reducing risk further. Given the speed of the processor in the 4G, and the low overhead hitting sync when there's nothing to flush, the overhead at a one sec interval may be trivial.
I haven't progressed far enough with this nascent idea to have characterized such questions. It's on the work order, though.
Also, my rough experimentation with this is all via shell scripting, which has a lot of unnecessary overhead. Coding this into an Android service, calling the linux sync(2) system call directly will be much more efficient.
Sent from my mind using telepathitalk
hotwired34 said:
I assume that the #Bonsai ROM is a comment and not needed, so that was omitted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, just a comment... across different ROMs I've found that devs mess around with the location, and linking, of the reboot command.
I have rebooted about 10 times (I know...many, many less than a Gazillion) and have not had any issues.
Thank you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
let us know when you get to a gazillion... our at least to a bazillion.
Oh, and anything with aliens or robots that comes up as well
Sent from my mind using telepathitalk
Related
I keep reading some mixed results. So questions are.
Did the lag fix work for you...
1. Yes my phone flies
2.didn't see a difference so uninstalled
3. Worked for a but got slow again so uninstalled.
4. Never had lag to begin with so haven't tried.
I finally installed one again and must say I see a difference in a few areas. One is the speedtest app, it used to take the test button like 6 seconds to pop up, now isntantly. Apps don't really open faster or anything, or browser either, but things just don't take forever to load, but will the fix do harm eventually is what I'm worried about..
1day after lag fix installed edit: OK so, the #3 started to show up, the market and speedtest app went back to normal load times ( still not bad maybe 6 seconds for market and same for speedtest) so I unistalled. Remember there's never been lag for me and since the 2 out of 3 apps I noticed it increase speeds in started going back to normal, I am fine with my gig back......
100 apps with 1.3 gb left... woohoo
I was going back and forth with different iterations of RayanZA's lag fix, and really do not see a noticeable difference once I reverted back to the original (tried one with ext4 support and it bombed on me, glad I had the nandroid backup done before I applied the lag fix).
Which version do you have?
EXT2 can be easily corrupted if it is uncleanly unmounted - during the phone crash, battery pull, etc. - I haven't seen the reports here that it is corrupted beyond the repair, but there were reports when people were running fsck on the ext2 partitions and there were errors.
EXT3/4 is a better choice, but again people are afraid that in the long run it will wear your internal sdcard beyond repair, since it is I/O heavy - well, I am not keeping this phone for more than 3 years, so I'd care less.
I do think Samsung went the lazy way with FAT32 variant, but I guess it was for the ease of use - you connect your phone to a windows PC, and there you have it as a flash drive.
lqaddict said:
I was going back and forth with different iterations of RayanZA's lag fix, and really do not see a noticeable difference once I reverted back to the original (tried one with ext4 support and it bombed on me, glad I had the nandroid backup done before I applied the lag fix).
Which version do you have?
EXT2 can be easily corrupted if it is uncleanly unmounted - during the phone crash, battery pull, etc. - I haven't seen the reports here that it is corrupted beyond the repair, but there were reports when people were running fsck on the ext2 partitions and there were errors.
EXT3/4 is a better choice, but again people are afraid that in the long run it will wear your internal sdcard beyond repair, since it is I/O heavy - well, I am not keeping this phone for more than 3 years, so I'd care less.
I do think Samsung went the lazy way with FAT32 variant, but I guess it was for the ease of use - you connect your phone to a windows PC, and there you have it as a flash drive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What's fsck ?
1 or 3?
It is insanely fast, but I just applied it 10 minutes ago...
smashpunks said:
What's fsck ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
File system check utility in Linux. Wikipedia Entry
smashpunks said:
What's fsck ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Linux utility stands for Flie System ChecK
Personally, I did the app-cache-to-NAND fix. I had done the OCLF but it took waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long to boot up, and it broke google maps (froze every time and I had to battery pull). I noticed that with the OCLF, Quadrant scores were more than doubled, but the phone itself didn't feel much different. I guess I never noticed any lag or sluggishness, except during boot when the damned media scanner was wasting my time.
lqaddict said:
I do think Samsung went the lazy way with FAT32 variant, but I guess it was for the ease of use - you connect your phone to a windows PC, and there you have it as a flash drive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can do that with any Android phone, they all use FAT32 for the SD cards.
Samsung went with RFS due to the safety margin it supplies - journaling file systems are more resistant to corruption from being unmounted unexpectedly - and the fact that it's proprietary/closed source, and big companies LOVE closed source stuff.
I never noticed "Lag" to begin with, but with all the issues everyone else was having figured better safe then sorry yah know? I have done the OCLF and while I can't say I've seen any benefit, I can say i haven't noticed any Detrimental effects to the phone. So yah I have it installed no issues, beneficial or negative to speak of that I know of. lol
boystuff said:
I never noticed "Lag" to begin with, but with all the issues everyone else was having figured better safe then sorry yah know? I have done the OCLF and while I can't say I've seen any benefit, I can say i haven't noticed any Detrimental effects to the phone. So yah I have it installed no issues, beneficial or negative to speak of that I know of. lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think the term lag is wrong.
I never noticed lag, however reading on slow loading of downloads in the market or their messaging app taking forever to load, I had to try again.
I do notice in the market things load faster and also like I said in op the speedtest apps test button pops up instantly now. Also just noticed in twitter it also loads and refreshes instantly now. So it does speed up loading times, but as far as lag??? There was never lag to begin with. Its loading times of some apps, and this drastically speeds it up.
I got like 100 apps installed and 390 mb left for more apps after it took 1gb for the fix (ext2), so unless it starts acting funny I'm gonna keep this installed.
Never got lag, but it does help some apps load faster....
Yea, really did help! No issues with market, apps taking ages to load, and messaging is faster.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Made it faster
It definitely made my phone faster, although I never really had lag, just wanted it even faster, but ended up going back to stock as it was causing issues with a few games. If they could find a way to not make it a memory hog I would put it back on.
It did it yesterday using the market one. The phone was fast already and never really saw any lag. What I have noticed is the market is way faster too load and my games load faster as well, overall well worth it.
Is it safe to remove the dmservice apk if I don't plan to do OTAs? Does this app do anything else besides check for updates (if that's truly the purpose of this app)?
Sincitybronze said:
Is it safe to remove the dmservice apk if I don't plan to do OTAs? Does this app do anything else besides check for updates (if that's truly the purpose of this app)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you really want to risk it? Why do people have a compulsion to start erasing stuff off their phones? Are you running out of space? Does the presence of unused programs just bug you?
Maybe he is trying to save some RAM or something?? Who knows...but I would check if it interferes with any important system apps/processes first. If he has no need for the OTA updates then I don't see the issue. Maybe a more informed person can help this person out.
deez1234 said:
Maybe he is trying to save some RAM or something?? Who knows...but I would check if it interferes with any important system apps/processes first. If he has no need for the OTA updates then I don't see the issue. Maybe a more informed person can help this person out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Has anyone ever run out of RAM using a Vibrant? I've never dropped below 60mb free. From talking to G1 owners, this is pretty amazing.
I am curious for an answer too, I am rooted and running the JI6 that I flashed from here. Today my phone now displays "Connecting to DM server.......". It has been like this for several hours now. I can't seem to make the process not come back. t continues to autostart. Any ideas anyone????
Kubernetes said:
Has anyone ever run out of RAM using a Vibrant? I've never dropped below 60mb free. From talking to G1 owners, this is pretty amazing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree that it is very hard to run out of RAM, I was just stating that because maybe the OP just wants to free up whatever he can. It's not gonna hurt anyone if the OP does it...or maybe it will, judging from some of the responses. All i wanted to do was help this person get their question answered. Harmless if you ask me! This is in no way a personal attack by the way, lol. It's quite hard for me to sense sarcasm through text...unless IT'S IN ALL CAPS.
I don't see any reason for it to hurt anything. I am running a backup now so that I can remove it and see what happens. I will update once it has been removed with a status.
Yeah, I just generally go by two rules of thumb: (1) If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and (2) If you don't know what it does, don't mess with it. There are plenty of services that run but are not obvious as to their purpose. I just wouldn't mess with it unless you feel like it's detrimental to your phone.
Typically I wouldn't, but this seems to be causing some battery drain. I will experiment, if anything goes wrong I can always restore my backup.
That's completely understandable. I agree once again. I think the OP may just be looking at the running process and thinks removing it and any future update will be beneficial. I am not quite sure of the motive but some people look at things differently. Maybe the OP will chime in with some of the reasons other than just disabling updates. That is yet to be seen, so until he posts unfortunately we won't know.
Ok, so here is the process I went through.
Went to Settings>Applications>Running Services>
Saw this:
DMService
com.wssyncmldm
***** RUN A BACKUP BEFORE RUNNING THESE COMMANDS! I am not responsible for anything that happens to your phone blah blah blah.....*******
Connected to the phone via adb
Ran the following commands:
su
# busybox mount -o remount -rw /dev/block/stl9
# rm wssyncmldm.apk
# rm wssyncmldm.odex
# rm wssyncmlnps.apk
# rm wssyncmlnps.odex
DM immediately stopped.
Rebooted the phone with no issues.
Will continue to monitor for issues.
So far so good.
Let us know how it affects your battery life or if it does anything nice for you at all. Thanks for being the guinea pig! Seems as if you did it more properly than I would have, lol.
No worries, I wouldn't think it would hurt anything to remove it. But, I have been known to be wrong before. Anyway, it should make quite a difference on the battery, my phone had been trying to connect to the DM Server for several hours and I was seeing a consistent drain. About 10% per hour. Now it seems to have settled a bit. With normal usage I haven't seen any FC's. WI-FI, BT and GPS are all working. It doesn't seem to have affected anything yet. Yeehaw...
Yes, battery life is the reason I'm interested in this. I removed the media hub and drm and experienced improved battery life. I thought eliminating dmservice might have a similar effect.
So far it seems to have made a difference. But the only time it was causing drain was wen it was trying to connect to the DM Server. I haven't yet seen it start back up, it appears as though it is completely gone.
Nice, hopefully this helps some people who are interested and are having issues with the service.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
aksoutherland said:
So far it seems to have made a difference. But the only time it was causing drain was wen it was trying to connect to the DM Server. I haven't yet seen it start back up, it appears as though it is completely gone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you so much for testing this. I uninstalled with titanium.
Titanium pro & freeze it
Vibrant + xda app
aksoutherland said:
I am curious for an answer too, I am rooted and running the JI6 that I flashed from here. Today my phone now displays "Connecting to DM server.......". It has been like this for several hours now. I can't seem to make the process not come back. t continues to autostart. Any ideas anyone????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Aks: is there an app you use to see which processes are actively trying to connect to a server? How can I get information like this? Thank you.
Using Titanium backup, I froze the DMservice and a few other DRM services and the media hub. I'm running bionic fusion if that matters. I have not noticed any adverse reactions and battery life does seem a bit better. I have not seen the error trying to connect to the dm service since doing this. If you just use the task manager, the service will start back up again after some period of time. Other threads about battery life have stated that these services are known to drain the battery. Freezing seems a good inbetween step to see how things go.
Edit Update.
So my extremely subjective interpretation of battery life is that its better and by simply freezing the services, they don't return. Maybe they do upon reboot; not sure. Before freezing the services, my phone would lose approximately 4% of battery within 1.5 hours of unplugging from power. Not the case this time. I have been unplugged for almost 2 hours and have lost negligible amount. I also turned off a bunch of update/notification services from seesmic, facebook, gtasks, etc.
sorry if some of these questions have already been asked and answered. unfortunantely, my computer crashed due to a manufacturing flaw so I can only access google and this forum via my epic (which can be a pain sometimes). also, since heros threads are always deleted, I cannot ask these questions there. please, any feedback and help would greatly appreciated.
okay so I reflashed backed snack 1.6 w/ ultimate after testing some of the newest froyo builds. id rather wat until I get the official ota upgrade.
after reflashing 1.6 for some reason, android market doesn't appear to be installed. where can I download the application? I even tried reflashing 1.6 over itself but that didn't work.
also, I'm using the new gingerbread youtube but I signed in and now I get a constant fc when I try to open it. how can I fix this? if I can't, where can I download an earlier version of youtube?
another question. this time about battery. using 1.6 w/ ultimate, I get fairly decent battery. only problem is, my battery stats say that my display and standby are what is killing my battery the most. nothing ever runs in the background, every so often I unlock my phone to either check the time or texts or facebook real quick, brightness is on its lowest setting, silent mode, juicedefender running correctly (battery life: x1.56), no data running in the background, drm killed, battery calibrated and battery stats wiped, and everything else possible to to save battery.
and something I'm noticing now that the phone is charging, the battery is quite hot and I'm not even using the phone. it only overheats when its charging and I've also noticed that its only hot when I use certain roms/kernels. any insight on this issue? any way to monitor and regulate temperature?
once again, any help would be appreciated!
Sent through the Matrix
Ill take a stab at these. Reason for you market not showing, can't say? Did you wipe 3 times before flashing bs 1.6?
Also never sign in on gingerbread youtube on 2.1 build. I don't think anyone has got that working yet. Simply clear the cache for youtube and you should be set.
Lastly, I don't know what to say about your bettery.. what do you have setcpu running at? Do you have profiles to lower your phones speed when in standby? Couldn't hurt to give it a shot.
Sorry about your computer, all my info is based on personal experience don't really have a "dev" type answer for ya. But hope some of this helps.
Goodluck!
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
skelit0r said:
Ill take a stab at these. Reason for you market not showing, can't say? Did you wipe 3 times before flashing bs 1.6?
Also never sign in on gingerbread youtube on 2.1 build. I don't think anyone has got that working yet. Simply clear the cache for youtube and you should be set.
Lastly, I don't know what to say about your bettery.. what do you have setcpu running at? Do you have profiles to lower your phones speed when in standby? Couldn't hurt to give it a shot.
Sorry about your computer, all my info is based on personal experience don't really have a "dev" type answer for ya. But hope some of this helps.
Goodluck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank you for your reply.
yes I did wipe both data, cache, and davlik 3 times. I guess I will do that now and report back.
how would I go about clearing the cache for one specific app? I know I can do that when I open up my settings and go to app development but youtube doesn't show up in that list.
setpcu is oc at 1300 and uc at 200 conservative. profiles are as follows:
charging/full - 1000 and 200 conservative
battery < 15% - 800 and 400 conservative
screen off - 600 and 400 conservative
yeah, brand new computer too. all of a sudden it couldn't recognize the hard drive. and yes, most of my info is based on personal experience and creeping on forums.
edit: wiped everything 3 times and reflashed. market till not appear.
Sent through the Matrix
For youtube I just open it up without a data connection and step through the process of signing out only enabling data when needed.
If you're missing market then you need to flash back stock with odin then start fresh. Baked doesn't remove market at all. If anything it's the fastest responding market I've used.
Heat from the battery is usually caused by programs requesting cycles or data. Just restart the phone before bed after your initial battery calibration.
nadcicle said:
For youtube I just open it up without a data connection and step through the process of signing out only enabling data when needed.
If you're missing market then you need to flash back stock with odin then start fresh. Baked doesn't remove market at all. If anything it's the fastest responding market I've used.
Heat from the battery is usually caused by programs requesting cycles or data. Just restart the phone before bed after your initial battery calibration.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
as I stated, I have no computer at the moment. so using odin to go back to stock is out of the question as of now. hopefully there's got to be another way without using odin. if not then I suppose I'm stuck in this predicament until I get my computer back from geek squad. and yes, I've never had a problem with heroes work before. but for some reason, this is happening.
and as I've stated before, no programs or data run in the background on my phone. after initial calibration I rebooted it. and after every boot, I toggle airplane mode on and then off. ill continue to moniter battery temps and see if the problem persists.
Sent through the Matrix
fromchaos0646 said:
as I stated, I have no computer at the moment. so using odin to go back to stock is out of the question as of now. hopefully there's got to be another way without using odin. if not then I suppose I'm stuck in this predicament until I get my computer back from geek squad. and yes, I've never had a problem with heroes work before. but for some reason, this is happening.
and as I've stated before, no programs or data run in the background on my phone. after initial calibration I rebooted it. and after every boot, I toggle airplane mode on and then off. ill continue to moniter battery temps and see if the problem persists.
Sent through the Matrix
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry bout that, I did read over that you hadn't had a computer. I overlooked it though. It just sounds like you might have somehow of gotten a corrupt install somehow.
Maybe you can try reinstalling 1.6 over top of itself. I don't really see anything wrong with that, but as stated before though. Make sure you wipe cache and dalvichk 3 times each before you do so.
nadcicle said:
Sorry bout that, I did read over that you hadn't had a computer. I overlooked it though. It just sounds like you might have somehow of gotten a corrupt install somehow.
Maybe you can try reinstalling 1.6 over top of itself. I don't really see anything wrong with that, but as stated before though. Make sure you wipe cache and dalvichk 3 times each before you do so.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's okay.
hm that might be what's wrong. ill download it again later. right now, I'm watching two dumbasses snort a line of fire ants on 1000 ways to die. xD (too lazy right now)
Sent through the Matrix
Quick question. Had my Aria for 4 months now. I noticed on my OS Monitor app it says system cache 50% full (40,960K total 20,454 used). What happens when it gets full? I guess with an unrooted phone I can only delete an applications cache?
Cache will be deleted automatically if it needs more space, etc. It's all automated. Nothing you need to mess with on your own.
"Nothing you need to mess with on your own"
No need to imply that i am feeble minded. I am a mechanic
by trade who performs diagnostics with engine control units and can swap an engine block in less than two hours, but I get nervous about rooting a little phone. I can't figure it out.
BeanTown_HTC said:
"Nothing you need to mess with on your own"
No need to imply that i am feeble minded. I am a mechanic
by trade who performs diagnostics with engine control units and can swap an engine block in less than two hours, but I get nervous about rooting a little phone. I can't figure it out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whoa there, BeanTown...
No one is implying any feeble-mindedness on your or anyone's part.
Drumist is simply stating that the Android system handles this by design, and that it's not intended to be fussed with by users.
It would be like having a watch and manually advancing the minute every 60 seconds instead of letting the watch keep time on its own. Yes, it can be done, but no need to mess around with it.
.
Understood.
I've got a problem with my S8 which is running latest, official, non-rooted XEO firmware. Specifically, it uses battery like crazy and heats up whilst doing nothing. This smells like a virus / malware infection or just... well, the last update was in December 2021 so it's also possible some system component is wonky OR... <shivers> some rootkit? I'm generally rather careful when installing apps, most of which will be coming in from official sources (Google Store) or at least fairly trusted sources.
Every so often I'll get a warning that a system component is using too much CPU and I should restart the phone - which obviously doesn't help at all. Also the battery drain is reported primarily by Android System and System Core (29 and 15% respectively). Battery usage stats generally don't add up because the listings don't add up to 100%. :/
I know the S8 is an old phone... and I know there are probably steps I should take prior to asking here - like a factory reset. But I'm really sceptical of doing a factory reset simply because I've got so much stuff on the phone that, while not impossible to backup, is certainly annoying (authenticator or banking apps for example - and I don't think the standard backup tools like those available from Google or Samsung backup such apps).
So I'd rather try some solutions or methods of dealing with the damned thing without resetting the phone first. Is there anything I can do?
You need to find the root cause. It may be a 3rd party using one or more of the Samsung system apps running under Android services, lol Legend for there are many... all lumped together.
A firewall with logging can help. Karma Firewall is what I use, uses almost no battery. Being rooted you have more options... use them.
Malware is always a possibility.
3rd party apps can cause hell. I don't allow any social media apps on the phone, ever.
Try in safe mode... if things calm down it's likely a 3rd party app. If so start going through the installed apps.
Clear system cache.
blackhawk said:
You need to find the root cause. It may be a 3rd party using one or more of the Samsung system apps running under Android services, lol Legend for there are many... all lumped together.
A firewall with logging can help. Karma Firewall is what I use, uses almost no battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will try that, thanks!
blackhawk said:
Being rooted you have more options... use them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The phone is NON-rooted.
blackhawk said:
Malware is always a possibility.
3rd party apps can cause hell. I don't allow any social media apps on the phone, ever.
Try in safe mode... if things calm down it's likely a 3rd party app. If so start going through the installed apps.
Clear system cache.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, safe mode! I'll try that too! Thanks!
Shaamaan said:
Will try that, thanks!
The phone is NON-rooted.
Oh, safe mode! I'll try that too! Thanks!
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Click to collapse
Sorry about the root thing, my bad.
If you're running on Android 9 or lower Karma Firewall's logging feature is fully active otherwise not. Samsung store>Galaxy Labs> Battery Tracker can be useful.
I use Accubattery's history page to get a quick idea of charge/discharge rates.
I use Device Care>storage>clean as well.
Make sure no cloud apps are running in the background.
Update: in safe mode the phone doesn't heat up and battery usage seems normal. So it's probably some app.
Alas, the firewall wasn't very helpful - it seemed that apps that attempted accessing the internet were your usual suspects - Play Store, One Drive or other sync apps, Vanced.
Any other suggestions on possibly nailing down the culprit?
PS. I've also decided to send Samsung an error report via the Members app - I don't know what their reply times are and I honestly don't expect much from them but who knows? Perhaps they'll come through.
Shaamaan said:
Update: in safe mode the phone doesn't heat up and battery usage seems normal. So it's probably some app.
Alas, the firewall wasn't very helpful - it seemed that apps that attempted accessing the internet were your usual suspects - Play Store, One Drive or other sync apps, Vanced.
Any other suggestions on possibly nailing down the culprit?
PS. I've also decided to send Samsung an error report via the Members app - I don't know what their reply times are and I honestly don't expect much from them but who knows? Perhaps they'll come through.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why other than maybe text messages is anything syncing? Take out the trash and go from there.
The ones that are connecting every minute or more when not open are prime suspects.
Some apps like Brave browser need to be closed out when not in use or they eat battery.
You can also try a hard reboot.
Update!
I left the phone in safe mode overnight. I mean, it seemed like things were better, so at least I'd have a stable phone.
Well, in the morning I was greeted with a severely depleted battery (went from 100 to 40 in the span of 6 hours) and I got the "high CPU usage" warning popup. The phone wasn't as hot to the touch tho.
So... Whatever is going on seems to happen also in safe mode, albeit less often? Or perhaps it's less "severe" where it doesn't heat up the phone but the drain is still there? But since safe mode is affected it's probably NOT an app, right?
At this point I'm completely baffled. Any other ideas?
Shaamaan said:
Update!
I left the phone in safe mode overnight. I mean, it seemed like things were better, so at least I'd have a stable phone.
Well, in the morning I was greeted with a severely depleted battery (went from 100 to 40 in the span of 6 hours) and I got the "high CPU usage" warning popup. The phone wasn't as hot to the touch tho.
So... Whatever is going on seems to happen also in safe mode, albeit less often? Or perhaps it's less "severe" where it doesn't heat up the phone but the drain is still there? But since safe mode is affected it's probably NOT an app, right?
At this point I'm completely baffled. Any other ideas?
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Click to collapse
Hard reset... hold power button until it powers off.
Try temporarily disabling Google play Services at night, see what that does.
OK, I'm baffled. I feel like I didn't really do anything but the phone is now running fine. Battery drain now might be better than ever!
Warms up on usage, obviously, but when idle it's nice and cool and battery drain seems minimal. I'll... leave it for a few days to see how this develops. It's very difficult to tell what the heck's the case here.
Shaamaan said:
OK, I'm baffled. I feel like I didn't really do anything but the phone is now running fine. Battery drain now might be better than ever!
Warms up on usage, obviously, but when idle it's nice and cool and battery drain seems minimal. I'll... leave it for a few days to see how this develops. It's very difficult to tell what the heck's the case here.
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Click to collapse
Retrace what you did. Reason being you may need to do it again. Really most times all you need to do is just "play" with it a bit (a lot). Almost impossible to crash a stock load, so explore and learn by playing with it. You are what you load and download; be careful with 3rd party apps they are the biggest potential hazards.
Once you have a fast, stable OS that's fulfilling its mission, let it be. Don't update or upgrade it.
Updates can and do break Sammy's. This N10+ is still running on Pie, current load is over 2yo. Rock solid stable and it runs like a bat out of hell with minimal maintenance. Security isn't an issue.
blackhawk said:
Retrace what you did. Reason being you may need to do it again. Really most times all you need to do is just "play" with it a bit (a lot). Almost impossible to crash a stock load, so explore and learn by playing with it. You are what you load and download; be careful with 3rd party apps they are the biggest potential hazards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a suspicion this might have been some Samsung app (my bet's on Bixby) since those are likely still able to run in Safe Mode that got updated and then fixed...? Does that make sense?
blackhawk said:
Once you have a fast, stable OS that's fulfilling its mission, let it be. Don't update or upgrade it.
Updates can and do break Sammy's. This N10+ is still running on Pie, current load is over 2yo. Rock solid stable and it runs like a bat out of hell with minimal maintenance. Security isn't an issue.
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Click to collapse
I'm concerned about the last bit. I mean, upgrading to a new Android version is one thing but security updates are common, no?
Shaamaan said:
I have a suspicion this might have been some Samsung app (my bet's on Bixby) since those are likely still able to run in Safe Mode that got updated and then fixed...? Does that make sense?
I'm concerned about the last bit. I mean, upgrading to a new Android version is one thing but security updates are common, no?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Kill wittle bixby... you read it EULA?☠
It's more than one apk though. Takes a while to optimize a Sammy the first time
Well... if it's set up and used right Android 9 will run securely in the real world. No saving dumb bunnies anyway; they'll still get tagged even with the latest version
The proof is in my hand. Loaded over 2+ years ago and this N10+ UI version 1.5 is running clean like a bat out of hell. If I do get malware I can't erraticate in an hour or so, factory reset and change passwords.
My data is redundantly backed* up 4+ times, plus the onboard SD card used as a data drive. I'm ready to reload right now if I have to...
A malware forced reload is still less trouble than constantly updating and having the updates screw things up. That means more troubleshooting, finding new work arounds and still maybe needing a factory reset on top of all that. No.
Not vaxed either... not buying the hype.
*critical data must be redundantly backed up or sooner or latter it will likely be lost. Never encrypt data drives as you are the most likely to be locked out!
blackhawk said:
Kill wittle bixby... you read it EULA?☠
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Click to collapse
Oh I'd love that - but it's a system app and removing those without root is kind of... impossible? I can look into disabling it completely however - I never use it anyway. Since it's not a single app - any chance you got a link to the list of apps that need manual disabling?
Anyway, I'm still getting those damned warnings. The phone isn't constantly hot however, which is some improvement.
Shaamaan said:
Oh I'd love that - but it's a system app and removing those without root is kind of... impossible? I can look into disabling it completely however - I never use it anyway. Since it's not a single app - any chance you got a link to the list of apps that need manual disabling?
Anyway, I'm still getting those damned warnings. The phone isn't constantly hot however, which is some improvement.
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Click to collapse
Package Disabler kills bixby proper.
You can also disable it with an adb edit. That's one of the first things I do.
Bixby is a hot mess best dump along the interstate... like Google Assistant it needs external servers for many of its functions. I may change my mind but it's eula is like eating dry hardtack for breakfast.