Solved my Gingerbread Exchange battery drain issue (workaround) - Galaxy S I9000 General

Since Froyo, my Galaxy S suffers from battery drain if an exchange emailaccount is setup (irrespective of the update interval set). The only ROM & kernel which didn't do this was XWJPA with the Speedmod kernels.
Battery drain was easy to spot: SystemPanel would show that the CPU load while the phone was asleep was a steady 10-20%. Once the exchange account was removed, behaviour was back to normal immediately (idle CPU floating between 1% and 3%).
Since i like JVH very much, i have come up with a workaround in Gingerbread JVH: in Settings, Accounts and Synchronization, i untick 'Auto-sync' . This stops the idle CPU load.
Next, i have set up a task with Tasker, the task enables auto-sync every 4 hours, waits 5 minutes, and disables auto-sync again. This way, stuff is still synced every now and then without the battery drain.
Hope this helps someone.

Pls post your task settings for us to import. Thks

This does not solve the "suspend" bug.
Just tried it but after playing some game for testing this solution the suspend bug came back.

maartenlaeven said:
This does not solve the "suspend" bug.
Just tried it but after playing some game for testing this solution the suspend bug came back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well you could try removing software update app.

Already deleted the software update app. Doesn't seem to help.
Any other (new) sugestions?
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

I have also seen this with my phone - but more importantly I have seen it on the server side as we have a number of Android phones, and we end up with a lot of processes running on the server.
I discovered by looking in the server logs that the email application is polling the Calendar on a constant basis. It is not just pinging the folder as it should do - it is also doing a sync every 5 minutes or so as far as I can tell.
My workaround is to uncheck the option for Calendar sync.
Other items Email, Contacts and Tasks all sync just fine as they are supposed to do.
Then every once in a while I check the Calendar sync option - perform a Sync Now to bring the calendar up to date - then uncheck the option again.
I do hope thy sort out this issue soon - as otherwise they have done a great job with enhancing the email application as far as ActiveSync integration goes.

LiverpoolFCfan said:
I have also seen this with my phone - but more importantly I have seen it on the server side as we have a number of Android phones, and we end up with a lot of processes running on the server.
I discovered by looking in the server logs that the email application is polling the Calendar on a constant basis. It is not just pinging the folder as it should do - it is also doing a sync every 5 minutes or so as far as I can tell.
My workaround is to uncheck the option for Calendar sync.
Other items Email, Contacts and Tasks all sync just fine as they are supposed to do.
Then every once in a while I check the Calendar sync option - perform a Sync Now to bring the calendar up to date - then uncheck the option again.
I do hope thy sort out this issue soon - as otherwise they have done a great job with enhancing the email application as far as ActiveSync integration goes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly the same issue I am having.. Calandar is syncing like mad.... Im using Enhanced Email for my exchange email and thats bulling 46% of my battery.
Have removed the calandar sync and will update on results once i have a few hrs usage

Update: stopping exchange calendar sync has fixed my battery drain issues on jvh.
Sammy may have made changes to the sync app and stopped it from behaving properly. Guess its manual calendar sync until they fix
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

update II:
Enhanced Email battery drain has gone from 40% to 4% since disabling calandar sync i now have more than 5hrs battery life

i m ready to disable all the calendar to get just few hours of battery

Krieg Noobie said:
Pls post your task settings for us to import. Thks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please note that this needs the program Tasker, available in the Market.
1. create a new Profile with the context Time, name the profile as you wish
2. set the From: field to 00:00, tick Repeat an set that to every x hours (i use 4 houres)
3. tap Done
4. Add a New Task, name the task as you wish
5. add an action, from the category Net, choose action Auto-sync, Set to On, tick Done
6. add an action, from the category Tasker, choose action Wait, Set to 5 minutes, tick Done
7. add an action, from the category Net, choose action Auto-sync, Set to Off, tick Done
8. Tick Done
9. Tick Apply
This way, its still possible to sync (even Agenda) without battery drain

LiverpoolFCfan said:
I have also seen this with my phone - but more importantly I have seen it on the server side as we have a number of Android phones, and we end up with a lot of processes running on the server.
I discovered by looking in the server logs that the email application is polling the Calendar on a constant basis. It is not just pinging the folder as it should do - it is also doing a sync every 5 minutes or so as far as I can tell.
My workaround is to uncheck the option for Calendar sync.
Other items Email, Contacts and Tasks all sync just fine as they are supposed to do.
Then every once in a while I check the Calendar sync option - perform a Sync Now to bring the calendar up to date - then uncheck the option again.
I do hope thy sort out this issue soon - as otherwise they have done a great job with enhancing the email application as far as ActiveSync integration goes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! This is consistent with something i have seen multiple times: if i opened up Settings, Accounts and Synchronization on the phone, and tapped the Exchange account, the grey spinning circle would always show next to the calendar entry, indicating it was in a sync loop or something.
I guess, this could very well be related to Android being sensitive to recurring appointments (and exceptions in recurring patterns) and appointments with large notes attached to them.
Could you point me to the logs on the Exchange server which lead you to this discovery. I'd like to dive in deeper.

Related

How to configure daytime sync only?

Hi got my new phone, but how to tell android that it will only sync my mails during daytime?
In Symbian and WinMobile this was part of the mail/exchange client maybe i am simply too blind to see it.
I would like to know too but my problem is getting the bloody thing to sync. I set it to fetch every 30 mins but it is not fetching at all.....
Mine syncs with imap, gmail and exchange pretty easy. Just opened the email app that was preinstalled and added the accounts. But it does it 24 hours every 60 minutes...
Assuming it's an exchange account:
(From Home)
Menu > Settings > Accounts and sync > your exchange account > Account settings > Sync schedule
This is on my Galaxy w/ the latest software, not sure if the other Galaxy's throughout the world have different options.
There doesnt seem to be an option to do this with gmail though, which sucks.
I think the OP wants to disable updating during the night and is not asking how to set the update frequency.
I use an App on my Hero (not got an SGS yet) called Timeriffic which allows you to mute etc by setting schedule - it can be used to control another App called APNdroid I believe that will do what you want to do.
I only use Timeriffic to mute and I set it for different times on different nights, so my phone stays active later at the weekend (when I go out) and it also unmutes later at the weekend (when I get a lie in if my son doesn't make too much noise).
Vince
If the OP wants to go beyond Exchange and stop Gmail and others at night, there's an app called 'Setting Profiles' in the market for $3 which will let one create a night-time profile which disables the automatic data sync for all accounts, it's not account specific but sounds like it'd do the trick with timed profiles.
It also does ringtone/sounds, brightness, GPS, wallpaper, volume and other settings and can trigger off of time of day, calendar, location, call, battery level, headset, bt, wifi etc.
I use the power control widget, and just turn off sync'ing when I go to bed.
jonsoini said:
Assuming it's an exchange account:
(From Home)
Menu > Settings > Accounts and sync > your exchange account > Account settings > Sync schedule
This is on my Galaxy w/ the latest software, not sure if the other Galaxy's throughout the world have different options.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There i expected it to be, but isn't. I got software version F3 in the end on my Galaxy S.
But it should really be an global option to say data sync is on off.

[Q] Cant stop sync

Like many others I have very poor battery life with my handset and if I forget to charge overnight it's empty in the morning.
To try and get as much out as possible I am disableing everything I can in terms of wifi, bluetooth and sync.
Now this is where I'm confused. The phone is linked to my Exchange server for contacts and email with push updates enabled. However even when I disable sync and background data I'm still having email pushed to the device.
This is definately not helping on the battery life front but short of doing a full reset and setup is there anywhere else I should be looking to turn this off when not needed?
harwooda said:
Like many others I have very poor battery life with my handset and if I forget to charge overnight it's empty in the morning.
To try and get as much out as possible I am disableing everything I can in terms of wifi, bluetooth and sync.
Now this is where I'm confused. The phone is linked to my Exchange server for contacts and email with push updates enabled. However even when I disable sync and background data I'm still having email pushed to the device.
This is definately not helping on the battery life front but short of doing a full reset and setup is there anywhere else I should be looking to turn this off when not needed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you can't, what you can do is to change it to sync once every hr.
Go to Settings > Accounts and sync > Tab on your exchange account > Account Settings > Email check frequency, change it to "Every Hour"
and Amount to synchronize to "1 day", it won't delete email you have downloaded to SGS, it just don't try to sync older day data. --> This will help your battery life
Thats just daft.
Why have the options to disable sync if it's then compleatly ignored. Is this the same for the google account as well? I only have this on the phone for market access but will manually disable all sync on this account if it will help battery life.
harwooda said:
Thats just daft.
Why have the options to disable sync if it's then compleatly ignored. Is this the same for the google account as well? I only have this on the phone for market access but will manually disable all sync on this account if it will help battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google Mail sync will be manual
even with 1 hr + 1 day setting, I get significant battery life improvement.

Sgs lags only when using Samsung email

Hi,
As the title says. .can u guys try it out. .im running on foryo now but the same thing was on 2.1...
It only lags when i configure an email account in the email client. ..once deleted NO LAG. .
Btw what's up with the gps fuss. .mine is working perfectly infact its best gps and wifi in a phone i owned.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
SGS also lags when browsing through different memos in Memos application. It's hilarious!
u didn't get what im saying it only lags after configuring an email account. ..ex ur memo browsing might not lag if u remove ur email account. .
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
Well, I don't have seperate email accounts configured, only Gmail.... so don't know about that.
Either you've never had a gps-enabled phone before, or your previous phones have been useless, as my experience is that my old G1 has better gps than my SGS - it locks MUCH faster and is 100% accurate, whereas the SGS never gets within 10m of my location and once I start moving it just goes haywire - MY Tracks shows me driving through fields and houses 90% of the time and occasionally I've done handbrake turns in someones front garden apparently.
;8827033 said:
Either you've never had a gps-enabled phone before, or your previous phones have been useless, as my experience is that my old G1 has better gps than my SGS - it locks MUCH faster and is 100% accurate, whereas the SGS never gets within 10m of my location and once I start moving it just goes haywire - MY Tracks shows me driving through fields and houses 90% of the time and occasionally I've done handbrake turns in someones front garden apparently.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know but i never faced an issue like that and the fix is pretty fast compared to my touch pro and omnia 2
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
Lag also without email-accounts
Since upgrading to FroYo 2 weeks ago i haven't bothered to enter my email-accounts. (only gmail)
But it still lags!
dspjern said:
Since upgrading to FroYo 2 weeks ago i haven't bothered to enter my email-accounts. (only gmail)
But it still lags!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can add my name to this list. I've never used Samsung's crappy E-mail app, yet my phone lags constantly.
Back to the drawing board, eh?
adel6 said:
Hi,
As the title says. .can u guys try it out. .im running on foryo now but the same thing was on 2.1...
It only lags when i configure an email account in the email client. ..once deleted NO LAG. .
Btw what's up with the gps fuss. .mine is working perfectly infact its best gps and wifi in a phone i owned.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have experienced the same thing, i mainly experience the lag in the email app itself though. System Panel shows a steady 30% cpu usage when just looking at the email screen(s), and a steady continious +50% cpu when in the Accounts & Settings of the email accounts, so there is something odd. It seems to relate to Exchange accounts, but i'm not sure.
I read somewhere that a K9-mail user had a problem, downloading 20-25 messages took 10 minutes. After applying Voodoo Lagfix, this dropped to 2 seconds... So maybe the email app is really hammering the internal SD card for no good reason, which would explain the high CPU .
I've never used Samsung's crappy E-mail app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the e-mail app on the Galaxy S identical to the "stock Android" one?
I use the GMail app myself and I have no problems with it. The Memo app turned painfully slow after the 2.2 update, but fortunately I don't use it
pwhooftman said:
I have experienced the same thing, i mainly experience the lag in the email app itself though. System Panel shows a steady 30% cpu usage when just looking at the email screen(s), and a steady continious +50% cpu when in the Accounts & Settings of the email accounts, so there is something odd. It seems to relate to Exchange accounts, but i'm not sure.
I read somewhere that a K9-mail user had a problem, downloading 20-25 messages took 10 minutes. After applying Voodoo Lagfix, this dropped to 2 seconds... So maybe the email app is really hammering the internal SD card for no good reason, which would explain the high CPU .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't bothered investigating cpu usage and such, but I can confirm that the email client profits tremendously from a lag fix (OCLF, in my case, using two Exchange accounts).
As stated in Post #11, i had the same problems. After Setting back to Factory Defaults and installing Voodoo Lagix last night, my conclusions are:
- the problem is introduced/highly aggrevated by installing Froyo 2.2 over Eclair 2.1, which i did through Kies with the registry hack two weeks ago.
- a format of the Internal SD Card, followed by a reset to Factory Defaults, solves the problem to a point the email app is useable again (albeit no speed monster). Also, this solved other ittermittent force closes which i was suffering from mostly in Agenda related apps. Of course you will loose all apps and data doing this.
- Applying Voodoo lagfix solved the speed issues almost completely. You can still tell the email app isn't the best programmed app of the bunch, but its perfectly workable. Installing Voodoo was a breeze following the step by step instructions found through project-voodoo.org.
It does seem a little more responsive after removing te email account.
I will try the voodoo lagfix. But I'm hoping for an updated version of FroYo.
Try this app for email including exchange, it was provided by seven for Samsung, but it was not put on all Galaxy S's, seems to work quite well.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=8731758&postcount=25
Sent from my GT-I9000 using my ASS!
Running JP6 with voodoo. The default mail app works nicely with two accounts. One exchange and one imap.
No lags even with a few days uptime.
Exchange email accounts drain battery fast on Scandinavian Froyo update
To illustrate something is amiss with the Scandinavian Froyo update, that Samsung pulled afterwards:
If you set up Exchange email accounts, setting the Email retrieval update interval to anything else than 'Never' results in a continious 10% CPU load, draining the battery two times faster than in Eclair 2.1
I set it to 'Never', or have Tasker kill the Email app x seconds after Display Off
Determined by using System Panel app.
Edit: flashed JPA firmware (which is believed to be the official Froyo update coming 11-11), problem still exists
Test with K9 and default Android Email app on i9000
Did a test on my i9000. Stock 2.1 no lag fix. Bought SIM-Free so only has Samsung's tweaks and no mobile operator branding.
I9000XXJM1
ECLAIR.XWJM2
TEST A. Default Email application
1. Used Email app (default one that comes with Android):
Added two Gmail accounts / IMAP, SMTP, SSL.
No unacceptable lag other than that encounted without the usual lag-fix.
2. Added 1 non-Gmail account / IMAP/ SMTP-AUTH, TLS
System became nearly inoperative. Swiping between home screens took 2 seconds. Using most apps, caused the screen to remain black for between 2 and 30 seconds. In one case using Xscope (browser, which was now impossible to use - unresponsive and 3 mins to draw a page) caused the screen to remain black for approx 3 mins. Contact, Messenger and Phone apps took a max of 2 seconds to open, but always opened. Outbound call quality degraded to the point the called party complained. I did not notice an app crash.
TEST B. K9 Mail application
1. Used K9-Mail app :
Added two Gmail accounts / IMAP, SMTP, SSL.
No unacceptable lag other than that encounted without the usual lag-fix.
2. Added 1 non-Gmail account / IMAP/ SMTP-AUTH, TLS
System became nearly inoperative. Swiping between home screens took 2 seconds. Using most apps, caused the screen to remain black for between 2 and 30 seconds. In one case using Xscope (browser, which was now impossible to use - unresponsive and 3 mins to draw a page) caused the screen to remain black for approx 3 mins. Contact, Messenger and Phone apps took a few seconds to open. Outbound call quality degraded to the point the called party complained. I did not notice an app crash. System load hit 39, which is very overloaded for a 1 CPU device. Often it was between 10 and 20.
I suspect the I/O but I did not see iostat in busybox; the stdout from top was badly formatted on the SGS display so I could not read the I/O column.
Notes:
i. Test B Result 2 is almost a copy and past of Test A Result 2. This is because the results were pretty much the same.
ii. System load (vmstat and top) I did not check system load with Test A. I only did this when I used K9-Mail.
iii. System was rebooted each time after an IMAP account was configured.
iv. I have since removed the non-Gmail IMAP accounts. It was hell. I almost beat the SGS into the wall.
v. Important: the non-Gmail IMAP account has the following in the mailbox:
Inbox 658 messages totalling 68.4Mb.
vi. K9-Mail configured to fetch full headers and messages <2kB hourly, and only the fetch the Inbox.
vii. NON-Gmail IMAP server capacities:
* OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 SASL-IR SORT THREAD=REFERENCES MULTIAPPEND UNSELECT LITERAL+ IDLE CHILDREN NAMESPACE LOGIN-REFERRALS UIDPLUS LIST-EXTENDED I18NLEVEL=1 STARTTLS AUTH=PLAIN] Dovecot ready.
No problem here - Google use Dovecot.
viii. A factory reset was done between the two tests. (Settings -> Privacy -> Factory data reset)
viiii. GMAIL IMAP accounts contained approx 20 Emails each in the Inbox. I await more SPAM for testing purposes.
UPDATE.
I had 1,000 Emails sent to me on Gmail. Then reran Test A Part 1, and had the Email app load 114 of these. The SGS stated to lag. I opened one of the messages (containing only 1 line of ASCII email), and the Email partially opened the Email, splutted, stopped, hung, screen went black. Eventually, I closed the app down. Even the Active Applications widget (and the programme it lauches) is slow (and red).
I went onto Gmail and deleted the 1,000 Emails, and synced the Email app with Gmail IMAP server. Messages read 0, and the SGS was back to normal speed without lag-fix.
I soubt very much that any one is using a normal Email account with the SGS Email app. I suspect most are using Gmail with the Gmail application. I cannot comment on the lag fix (I await CyanogenMod for mine), but the SGS cannot be used with a non-Gmail account without a lag fix : useless for me since I only use Gmail for the Market ; Like many people, work provides the Email account. Clearly, Samsung test team did not test their wonderful RFS with normally sized IMAP accounts. Nice one, Samsung. 10 out of 10 for cocking it up.
As for GPS its something like thsi:
- Where are the sats?
Oh there they are.
Please don't move for 30 seconds.
Found some!
Oh feck, you've moved.
Now where are those pesky sats?
What was I doing? Oh sats!
Setting Exchange to'"Push" seems to solve it
I came across this and lo and behold, excessive CPU usage goes down to fairly normal 1-3% CPU while asleep by setting Email retrieval for Exchange accounts to "Push"
Edit: at least, it did for a while. Now its back to previous behaviour. I'm still investigating
Series of tests reveal that email client performs different in certain circumstances
I made a lot of testruns of about one hour to determine the effect of setting up Email Exchange clients on CPU usage and therefore battery life:
Starting point:
- Build Froyo.XWJPA
- Smallband I9000XXJPP
- Voodoo lagfix
- One Gmail account set up, syncing contacts, Gmail, Picassa, Agenda
- Tests run against two separate Exchange Server 2003 servers SP2
- CPU load determined with SystemPanel app
1. Installed Exchange account #1 without security policies. Email retrieval set to "Push".
- Email process used 0% CPU, system CPU floating around 3%
2. Set Exchange account #1 to retrieve email every hour
- Email process used 1,1% CPU, system CPU floating around 10%
3. Set Exchange account #1 back to "Push"
- Email process used 0% CPU, system CPU floating around 3%
4. Set Exchange account #1 to retrieve every 5 minutes
- Email process used 1,5% CPU, system CPU floating around 10%
4. Added Exchange Account #2 with security policy, Email retrieval set to "Push"
- - Email process used 0,5% CPU, system CPU floating around 10%
5. Set Exchange account #2 to retrieve email every hour
- Email process used 1,5% CPU, system CPU floating around 10%
So, what seem conclusions from this test:
1. One Exchange account set to `Push` doesn´t affect battery life much. 'Push' is generally considered the most battery effective.
2. One Exchange account set to some time interval does affect CPU considerably, therefore batterylife also. It's irrelevant what interval is set. The reason the total system CPU goes to around 10% seems to be that the process name ´system´ starts using several % CPU as soon as the email process does. Based on the experience that the email client is slow with an exchange account without a lagfix leads me to the conclusion the email app is performing large amounts of I/O in this setting. This link (comment 14) seems to confirm this. Experiences here (comment 15 & 16) are similar.
3. Adding another Exchange account with security policy enforced increases CPU, no matter at what interval this second account is set. This could be related to the bug found on Motorola Droid that when the Maximum inactivity time out in the Activesync properties on the Exchange server are set to a higher value than the highest supported value on the phone, the email app keeps the phone in a wake lock.
So, i just have my exchange accounts set to Never. For one account, automatic retrieval is useless anyways because mail gets delivered to subfolders (which do not sync or get pushed automatically). Fot the other, i'll just have to open the email app every now and then and let it fetch mail at that moment.
This problem doesn't seem to be limited to the Galaxy S, Motorola Droid is mentioned also in above threads.
Improved Email
I can advise everyone to look into "Improved Email" at http://www.mwebster.us/
It has the ability to sync specific subfolders, hide subfolders, apply color of your choice to the account, open up the email app in folder view, etc
Tip: first delete exisiting Exchange account and setup a new account from within the improved email app

My Quest of finding a Solution to Battery Drain and some funny stuffs

I have got my galaxy S2 for a week now. I absolutely love the phone. Just that the battery problem is killing me. I only manage to get half day of usage for the phone. Then I started reading infinite number of threads on xda on battery issue. I basically tried every possible methods:
flashing so many roms (on decided to stay on KF2 right now),
deleting all widgets(could be),
root the phone and install titanium backup to delete a lot of software which ppl
classified as the source of the drain(could be),
disable fast dormancy(dun see the difference),
disable push email and sync(could be),
using advance task killer to kill app every hr (dun work),
juice defender(dun work)...
etc etc...
SOMEHOW, my battery drain issue STOPPED yesterday!!! I still dunno what exactly is causing it to stop draining. But I DID find out a pattern, when we go to the battery plot section, if the phone shows a solid "Awake" bar, then the battery drains very fast.
So I started trying very possible way to stop the phone being "awake", the above methods I marked as cound be are the ones that I think can actually help. Using advance task killer does make a "segmented awake bar" for a few minutes, but it becomes a solid bar soon after, so no use (i found "clean memory" function comes with the phone better than ATK). Deleting widgets wont stop the phone being awake but it certainly makes my phone feeling lighter and faster. Then I rooted the phone, and start using titanium backup to delete ( i cant just freeze with free version) the possible softwares, e.g the hubs, wifi-sharing, softwaire updates. Then all in a sudden, the phone tries to sleep!!!
For me, I think social hub could be making the phone awake (at least it must be one of them), but I NEED if I need to use the email app that come with the phone for receiving emails from hotmail.
funny stuff starts....
So solve it, I imported my hotmail account to gmail using POP so that I can use gmail app to check hotmail. But then my hotmail and gmail start going crazy...!!
Reason: I did similar setting before in my hotmail account to receive gmails in to my hotmail account. What happens next is... Yes.. I basically created a "loop function" which makes the two accounts keep exchanging emails automatically to one another.. I received 1000+ emails in just a few minutes and it keeps going faster and faster.!!! > < Therefore I wont try this again!!!!
Can someone tell me a solution of getting hotmail emails in other ways besides those stupid apps (e.g android mail) in the android market which basically acts as a bookmark to get you to the hotmail page? MANY THANKS!
One of these might help:
POP your hotmail into a new yahoo mail account and install yahoo mail client.
Set up a new gmail account and POP hotmail into it, use gmail client to read main and this new account.
Figure out whats wrong with your phone that makes samsung stock mail waste juice, I use it for exchange mail and it's just a bit more hungry than what I would have wanted, I get through a heavy usage day just fine.
JuiceDefender surely helps. I'm getting 2 days with medium usage, KE7 stock firmware. Yes, as you said if you have background tasks, that will kill the battery, but just close them if you don't need them. Also disable auto-sync, and let only your email sync.
Thank you kreo, i will try yahoo mail account with ur method!

MAJOR battery drain from Mail app

Dear all
I've only had my SGSII a week or so but have been very unimpressed with the battery life I've been achieving - not even a full working day.
I've been trying to work out what's going on, but this morning things really seemed to come to a head. I'd charge overnight but within an hour and a half of disconnecting the phone almost half the charge had gone & the back of it felt very warm to touch.
Looking at the battery stats and using the Watchdog program it looks like the Samsung Email app is to blame. I also saw the phone was marked as 'awake' much of the time, presumably due to a partial wakelock from the Mail app (battery history in Gingerbread doesn't seem to actually have partial wakelock as a category but this certainly looks like it). I've got three accounts setup in it - 2x Microsoft Exchange and 1x IMAP. Refresh times were initially push (MSEx 1)/manual (MSEx 2)/15 min (IMAP). I've tried changing them all to 15 min or to manual but it doesn't seem to improve matters. In case it is of relevance, the MSEx ones are imposing device & storage encryption as part of their policies (I've no choice in this).
Relevant screenshots below - would be grateful for any thoughts as to how and improve matters!
What firmware are you on? I believe the later ones fix the email app slightly, although I haven't seen any drain as bad as yours.
Another option, if you don't mind flashing a custom ROM, would be to install VillainROM 1.4, and use the Villain Tweaks app to get the vanilla Android e-mail app. It's what I've done, and it seems to work well!
Thanks for the reply. I'm just on the stock ROM that came with the phone (XWKE7) - both update on the phone and Kies don't report any further update being available for me (UK SIM-free unbranded).
I tried rooting this morning and used TB to freeze some of the Samsung rubbish (hubs, etc.) - however none of this made any difference to battery usage.
I wasn't sure how the stock email app handled MS Exchange accounts that required encryption? The Samsung Mail app isn't that bad, I particularly liked the split pane view - it seems really badly coded though if it's causing this!
Short of a total ROM replacement any other thoughts from anyone?
delete the data from the app
settings/applikations/all/email/ delete or wipe user data (all data).
make a new Mailaccount.
spline1 said:
delete the data from the app
settings/applikations/all/email/ delete or wipe user data (all data).
make a new Mailaccount.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks - had been looking for this but couldn't find anything under 'Mail' - found it under 'Email' as you mention As soon as I deleted the data it recognised the device encryption policy had been removed and this triggered a decryption of system and external storage. I'll monitor battery usage for a few hours then reinstate the IMAP account and monitor things again before finally restoring the ActiveSync account.
OK definitely some progress so far - only IMAP account added just after charging stopped and battery usage has dramatically improved...
Now going to try adding an MS Exchange account!
OK, so far so good - MS Exchange account added back in and left on overnight...
I wonder if the mistake was when first setting up the account picking the special Samsung 'premium account' option??
OK - I'm now suspicious that it is manual sync setting that is causing the issue - re-added a second Exchange account and put it all to manual - phone almost totally drained in a couple of hours, with the sharp drop occuring just after I added that:
Have tried removing just that account and hope that will do the trick. If so, will then try adding it again but setting a sync time rather than leaving it on manual.
I've switched to touchdown for my corporate ms exchange account (push) instead of the samsung app.
Battery life gone from 7 hours to about 16 hours. I can't believe the native app is so thirsty. (KE7 stock)
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
What's interesting was that I was getting around 16+ hours too with the stock app having an MS Exchange account (on push peak times and 15 min other times) an IMAP on 15 min and a few Gmail accounts. It seemed to be adding the 2nd Exchange account on manual sync that sucked the battery life again. Am going to try readding it but paradoxically leaving it on a more frequent sync setting to see how that does.
If i remember correctly, it was observed that the mail app (non gmail) and wifi interact to cause a lovely wakelock, and that it happens with stock and samsung.
Maybe try something like k-9 mail?
Intersting - it certainly seems to behave like a wakelock. As I say though with one account on push and one in 15 min it was working fine - it was only when I tried to add a second exchange account on manual that I started to run into problems. Pretty poor coding on Samsung's part though regardless! Does anyone know the best way to raise these sort of issues with them?
Get in touch with Seven as well they produce the email app. I have mine on push with exchange and no bad battery drains, also I run manual when in the office once again no heavy drainage. I am on VR though.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
alanjrobertson said:
Does anyone know the best way to raise these sort of issues with them?
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In USA, they just introduced this
http://www.facebook.com/SamsungMobileUSA?sk=app_158125230916392
but obviously I doubt we can use this for SGS2 that is not out in the US yet.
You can however say that you are traveling, in the States right now
Thanks for the suggestions, folks - will try them. The @SamsungUK twitter account never seems to reply to any Tweets, but will see if they have a comparable FB page. Have found Seven's website so will get in touch with them too.

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