Hmmm... I think I just found a way to really screw up your phone... let's see what you think of my theory:
1. Put your phone into Airplane mode. This will completly turn off all the radios in the phone.
2. Go into settings and set an unlock pattern.
3. Put your phone into standby mode and turn it back on.
4. If you use up all of your tries at the unlocḱ screen you will have to enter your login details to unlock it. BUT THE PHONE IS STILL IN AIRPLANE MODE. Hence, the phone will not be able to connect to Googles servers for verification. And the worst thing is that not even a shut down of the phone will remove the airplane mode. Not even a removal of the battery.
THe only way to get out of this is to do a hardware reset of the phone.
What do you this of this?
I am not gonna test my theory since I don't want to risk having to do a hardware reset.
I think before the phone tries to connect to the Google service it will prompt you with a 'turn off airplane mode/turn on mobile data/WiFi' option, like it does when you open an app that requires WiFi or GPS when those radios are switched off.
Try it
Switchbitch said:
I think before the phone tries to connect to the Google service it will prompt you with a 'turn off airplane mode/turn on mobile data/WiFi' option, like it does when you open an app that requires WiFi or GPS when those radios are switched off.
Try it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nah... I am not going to get close and personal with my theory on this one... Just let's hope you're right... someone else might need to do a hardware reset?
A quote from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=4351252&postcount=13 this post says it all...
Hereby can any available moderator close this thread since I have gotten my answers...
Being new to Android, I'm trying to figure out the WiFi sleep policy setting and how the lock screen affects things.
My issue is that if I leave the tablet unplugged overnight, with the screen off, I lose about 10% power. The Battery Use History Details screen shows that WiFi is on consistently and it seems to be awake when it shouldn't be.
So here are my questions:
1. Does disabling the lock screen cause the device to stay awake when the screen is off? It seems like there is a correlation between when I disabled the lock screen and it staying awake consistently, but it might have been an app I installed.
2. If I did not activate the device on the cellular network, and disabled mobile data, is there a WiFi disconnect policy that will turn on WiFi only to poll once in a while for mail and other updates but not stay on consistently?
I think I might be running into one of the big differences between Android and iOS here. iOS' push updates allows the device to use data collections very efficiently to get updates from the network, because it only has to poll one data source to get updates for all apps who require it. In May 2010, Google introduced Cloud to Device Messaging for Android, but how many apps use it? And does the device have a WiFi policy that only lets apps that use C2DM do their updates and then shut the connection off?
rlabarca said:
Being new to Android, I'm trying to figure out the WiFi sleep policy setting and how the lock screen affects things.
My issue is that if I leave the tablet unplugged overnight, with the screen off, I lose about 10% power. The Battery Use History Details screen shows that WiFi is on consistently and it seems to be awake when it shouldn't be.
So here are my questions:
1. Does disabling the lock screen cause the device to stay awake when the screen is off? It seems like there is a correlation between when I disabled the lock screen and it staying awake consistently, but it might have been an app I installed.
2. If I did not activate the device on the cellular network, and disabled mobile data, is there a WiFi disconnect policy that will turn on WiFi only to poll once in a while for mail and other updates but not stay on consistently?
I think I might be running into one of the big differences between Android and iOS here. iOS' push updates allows the device to use data collections very efficiently to get updates from the network, because it only has to poll one data source to get updates for all apps who require it. In May 2010, Google introduced Cloud to Device Messaging for Android, but how many apps use it? And does the device have a WiFi policy that only lets apps that use C2DM do their updates and then shut the connection off?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By default your wifi connection is set to never shut off. Settings/Wireless & networks/wifi settings/wifi disconnect policy. Change this to when screen is off.
Thanks, but I still want to be able to turn on my device and see new messages quickly. I assume it won't check for new mail at all with the WiFi off.
rlabarca said:
Thanks, but I still want to be able to turn on my device and see new messages quickly. I assume it won't check for new mail at all with the WiFi off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think you can do this with a stock android os. Its either on or off. Now you can download apps for phones, no idea if they work for tablet yet. Think one is called tasker and another juice defender. Basically they tell the tablet when it can and can't use data.
so after a couple of months of reading reviews and post by owners, i decided to pull the trigger last night.
after a 3-4 hour charge, i jumped right into it.
+very fast boot up.
i played with Honeycomb 3.0 before updating it to 3.1. i noticed that 3.1 had bootup & keyboard sounds, while 3.0 had none.
+the chassis is really nice. i loved the look. reminds me of my HTC HD2. rock solid.
+YouTube plays nice. i can already tell that i'm gonna be using this for mainly YouTube. but it really sucks that some videos won't play because it considers the A500 a "mobile device".
+web browsing is good so far. it even ran southparkstudios.com
uhm...that's all i can think of right now for pluses...
...and here's my cons with the tablet:
-it loses wireless connection when the screen goes to "sleep". but this apparently is a VERY common bug and issue with A500 owners. very annoying that i have to restart the wireless to get connection back. this is the main issue i have with it so far. my phone doesn't lose connection to the internet with the screen goes to "sleep".
-there's a dead pixel, but that's easily fixed by exchanging it for a new unit.
-lots of my games that i would normally use on my phone are completely useless because it still maintains a phone sized image. OR it just force closes.
-No Netflix app. although i read somewhere on the internet that there's supposed to be an official Netflix app coming out. but there's no way to confirm the validity of that statement.
-No Hulu
-No dedicated Facebook App
i still have lots to try out still like the HDMI out, the functionality of the USB ports, Divx/MPG/Avi compatibility, and MP3 sound quality. plus i want to see if i can install an NES/SNES emulator and play it via a bluetooth gamepad.
i noticed there's LOTS of ports...which means more possibly entry points for dust. which can be bad. ACER (or someone else) should make plastic/rubber port bootcovers to remedy that.
i haven't tried to install a custom ROM. nor have i tried to root it.
i'm looking forward to the 3.2 update. i'm hoping that'll fix all (or at least some) of the cons.
As for the internet connection, mine with stock rooted US rom (.13) doesn't do that. I have always internet after sleeping.
For the phone apps no scaling you can use Spare Parts and uncheck the compatibility box.
Facebook you can side load it, it works nice on my tablet.
Hulu is a common problem with all the tablets, you need a fixed flashplayer apk.
Hope it helps you
Root the device, for now try virtuous Xoom with 3.2 honeycomb. Once rooted netflix is fairly easily installed. Also, you can set the browser as "desktop". Mine has never lost wifi for any reason other than range.
My a500 have never lost WiFi during sleep.
There is a Tablet app "Friend Me" for Facebook and it is very good!
"Spare Parts" with "compatibility mode" disabled will make all apps full screen!
Never had a problem with a game (except those made or specific hardware)
Hulu and Netflics I can't comment! Living in Europe!
nick2k said:
-it loses wireless connection when the screen goes to "sleep".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go to settings and turn that option off then...
WereCatf said:
Go to settings and turn that option off then...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 to that - this is not a bug, this is a setting you can change, and is documented in your user manual.
Click apps. Settings. Choose the "wireless and network" menu. Click wifi settings. Click "Wifi disconnect policy" and modify it.
"Bug" fixed.
yikes i almost forgot about netflix
Netflix works great on the a500 - you need to root via Iconiaroot (assuming you are using 3.1) and then simply follow the instructions located here - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1076150
Just follow the instructions - either use root explorer with system mounted r/w or snag Acer recovery installer from market, install cwm, apply the patch.zip and you are done. Netflix looks great on a 10.1
hmm... seems like the consensus is that everyone doesn't have that issue. maybe my situation was a one time only thing.
but let me explain to you what i was doing when it happened:
i got tired of the Market app on the A500. but i'm also tired of the Market app on my HD2 as well. the new updated Market doesn't show you everything, it just shows you like the top ten for every category. anyways... so i put the tablet down (i didn't turn it off or put it in stand-by) and sat in front of my desktop and used the web browser version of Market. i probably spent about 15 minutes or so sending apps to install onto my device. when i went back to check on the tablet, the screen was off. i pressed the power button to bring the screen back on and the Wi-Fi was showing that it was 'OFF'. the only way to bring it back was to restart the Wi-Fi.
so yeah... it was strange. but like i said, maybe it was a one time event.
maybe i'll just set the timeout for higher like 60 mins.
nick2k said:
hmm... seems like the consensus is that everyone doesn't have that issue. maybe my situation was a one time only thing.
but let me explain to you what i was doing when it happened:
i got tired of the Market app on the A500. but i'm also tired of the Market app on my HD2 as well. the new updated Market doesn't show you everything, it just shows you like the top ten for every category. anyways... so i put the tablet down (i didn't turn it off or put it in stand-by) and sat in front of my desktop and used the web browser version of Market. i probably spent about 15 minutes or so sending apps to install onto my device. when i went back to check on the tablet, the screen was off. i pressed the power button to bring the screen back on and the Wi-Fi was showing that it was 'OFF'. the only way to bring it back was to restart the Wi-Fi.
so yeah... it was strange. but like i said, maybe it was a one time event.
maybe i'll just set the timeout for higher like 60 mins.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope.
You issue is a result of your settings. If you want your a500 to keep a active wifi connection while the screen is sleeping, you will need to go into your settings menu and tell your a500 to not drop the connection while the screen is off.
ahhh... cool. i'll definitely be playing with the settings tonight then. thanks.
Wifi is my only complaint so far and I am experiencing the same thing. Mine is set to never disconnect wifi, and it doesn't. It shows wifi connected the whole day under battery usage. However, when the screen goes off it seems to drop the wifi and I must disconnect/reconnect to get it working again when I turn it on. Not every time but it is frequent.
To be clear:
When I turn the screen on, wifi is unusable until I go into settings and toggle it off and back on.
mikel81 said:
Wifi is my only complaint so far and I am experiencing the same thing. Mine is set to never sleep, and it doesn't sleep. It shows wifi connected the whole day under battery usage. However, when the screen goes off it seems to drop the wifi and I must disconnect/reconnect to get it working again when I turn it on. Not every time but it is frequent.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are your wifi settings -> wifi disconnect settings set to not drop the connection when screen is off? Screen set to never sleep will not keep a inactive wifi connection alive - you need to go into wifi and networks catagory of settings and modify the disconnect policy.
Yes I know, sorry I meant never disconnect wifi not sleep.
mikel81 said:
Yes I know, sorry I meant never disconnect wifi not sleep.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am confused.
Are you saying you have wifi disconnect policy set to "Never disconnect", but are having issues holding a wifi connection after turning the screen off?
Please provide more information, very hard to troubleshoot something this vague.
There is a difference between WiFi turning off and WiFi disconnecting.
Here is what I'm seeing on mine:
1) With my tab on, WiFi connected, browser working, I can ping my tab from my desktop.
2) Shut down browser, put tab to sleep, wait an unknown timeframe (lets say 15 minutes).
3) Wake tab, see WiFi is still connected, do nothing else. Start pings from desktop in a continuious loop, pings all fail, despite WiFi connected on tab.
4) Start browser on tab, browser connects to test website, and suddenly pings respond on desktop.
So, it appears that while the WiFi on the tab stays connected, it does not actually go 'active' and start handling data until an app needs it, such as the browser.
arffer said:
There is a difference between WiFi turning off and WiFi disconnecting.
Here is what I'm seeing on mine:
1) With my tab on, WiFi connected, browser working, I can ping my tab from my desktop.
2) Shut down browser, put tab to sleep, wait an unknown timeframe (lets say 15 minutes).
3) Wake tab, see WiFi is still connected, do nothing else. Start pings from desktop in a continuious loop, pings all fail, despite WiFi connected on tab.
4) Start browser on tab, browser connects to test website, and suddenly pings respond on desktop.
So, it appears that while the WiFi on the tab stays connected, it does not actually go 'active' and start handling data until an app needs it, such as the browser.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No shortage of apps that can work around this - I don't understand why you want a network connection when nothing is using it, but to each their own
https://market.android.com/search?q=wifi+keep+alive&so=1&c=apps
The wifi issue you describe is not a bug. It is an android feature to reduce battery drain. If an app or connection is not in use, it is cached until a process is called.then the wifi connection becomes active. You can disable wifi sleep policy but you will see a battery drain if you set it that way.
Remember the two most important parts of a tablet are the screen and the battery. A poor screen or poor battery life will kill sales for that tab faster than apple can draw up a lawsuit.
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk
Moshe5368 said:
The wifi issue you describe is not a bug. It is an android feature to reduce battery drain. If an app or connection is not in use, it is cached until a process is called.then the wifi connection becomes active. You can disable wifi sleep policy but you will see a battery drain if you set it that way.
Remember the two most important parts of a tablet are the screen and the battery. A poor screen or poor battery life will kill sales for that tab faster than apple can draw up a lawsuit.
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well described.
Not sure why a user would want to bypass this - the moment an app requests data, as long as wifi disco policy is set - network connection is set to active.
entropy.of.avarice said:
Well described.
Not sure why a user would want to bypass this - the moment an app requests data, as long as wifi disco policy is set - network connection is set to active.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Untrue. I have used a number of applications that when launched, do not 'activate' the connected WiFi. Two for example, 'QuickSSHd', which is a SFTP and SSH server, and 'IP Webcam' a webcam server.
Wake up the Tablet, and see that the WiFi shows a connection. Fire up either of these server applications, and try to connect to them. No go...
Now go fire up the browser, which of course makes an 'outbound' connection, the WiFi 'activates' at that time, and suddenly both of the aforementioned server applications can be connected to.
In other words, when the 'conected' WiFi is asleep, it takes an 'outbound' app to wake up the wifi. An app that is waiting for an incoming connection never sees one until an outbound app wakes up the wifi.
NOTE: This behavior is NOT seen on my Android Gingerbread phone, running the same apps with the same sleep settings.
nick2k said:
+YouTube plays nice. i can already tell that i'm gonna be using this for mainly YouTube. but it really sucks that some videos won't play because it considers the A500 a "mobile device".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is not the video seeing the tablet as a mobile device.
It is your settings.
You can fix it very easily.
2 things to do.
open your browser
in the URL window (address bar) type about:debug and hit enter
it seems nothing happens but it adds a debug in settings
Next
On the very top right click the 4 lines with an arrow.
Click settings and on the left side click "advanced"
click "Viewing Mode" and set it to "desktop.
Now on the left click debug
click UAString and click desktop.
That's it.
Make sure you haven't saved any bookmarks from the mobile sites or they will still open from the bookmark as mobile sites.
Wifi used to turn off under standby on Windows Phone 7, which was the most stupidest feature in the whole OS I don't care what anyone says. Can anyone confirm if this is still present in WP8?
Since nobody got their hands on a device that's not even out yet, we can't answer that.
How can anyone confirm such a statement when the os isn't even out yet? (and some features may be still on the work, since the sdk isn't the final version yet?)
ammarmalik said:
Wifi used to turn off under standby on Windows Phone 7, which was the most stupidest feature in the whole OS I don't care what anyone says. Can anyone confirm if this is still present in WP8?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is/are an app(s) for that!
Even if it is still present in WP8, you can always have an app to help you add this feature (like other OS always does!)
Hi,
It would be really great if you could let me know the name of any of the apps which helps in keeping the wifi on all the time.
I am not having a rooted handset so I cannot change the registry entries and would only be able to get an app which is already in the marketplace
shamreez said:
Hi,
It would be really great if you could let me know the name of any of the apps which helps in keeping the wifi on all the time.
I am not having a rooted handset so I cannot change the registry entries and would only be able to get an app which is already in the marketplace
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its called keep alive
it has a logo of a heart
look it up in the market place
FWIW, even though the Wifi is switched off when the screen is off, I believe the OS does switch on & off the wifi as and when it needs to (checking emails, receiving push notifications etc) without fully waking the phone (ie the display stays off)
I run an app that polls a local server every few hours to check for new items. The local IP 192.168.1.65, as it appears on the local network, is the IP it checks. Every morning when I check my phone, the live tile has been updated overnight. It can't have made contact with the server unless it was connecting via Wifi, so therefore the Wifi is indeed being used even when the screen is off.
Therefore, I have no use for Keepalive or any of these apps. I'm not sure why people need it?
There were some recent news which mentioned that Live apps (Don't ask) will most likely remain active, even with the screen locked.
Also, seems that enabling your app as a GPS app will most likely let your app. However, these are discussions and rumors.
Wifi does not get completely shut down when you lock the screen. It simply enters a power-saving mode, cause you won't actively need your connection while phone is locked.
You can check this in easy steps. Get an app that updates itself over internet everytime you run it (say a whether app) and lock the screen at the exact moment when the app goes past the loading screen. You if you press the power button, you will see wifi is active in the status bar.
If you lock it the usual way, while nobody needs wifi, you will see wifi gets turned off almost instantly.
What if you are downloading bunch of podcasts ? Will the podcast app keep the wi-fi on until it finishes ? Also.. skype (or any other chat program) needs to check for updates as well.
I am sure they've made it seamless..
So, my N4 fell this week and the touch stopped working. Due to the cost of fixing it, I decided that I'm not going to fix nor sell it. Then I got the idea of keeping it and using it as some sort of amazon echo-like device, using Google now for tasks.
But there's a problem: the WiFi (as well as mobile data) is off, and I can't make it turn on.
Obviously I tried to simply say "OK, Google, turn WiFi on" but that doesn't work, as all I get is a message that there's no connection.
I did some research and saw that is possible to turn on via adb, but USB debugging is off, so that doesn't work (for what I understood at least, I'm not exactly a pro I'm this stuff).
That's basically it, I'm wondering if anyone has any idea for a workaround for turning the WiFi on.
Anyway, thanks in advance for the help.
Some extra info: I'm running 100% stock 5.1.1 (I think, not sure what the latest update number was), not change to bootloader either.
mrcoelingh said:
So, my N4 fell this week and the touch stopped working. Due to the cost of fixing it, I decided that I'm not going to fix nor sell it. Then I got the idea of keeping it and using it as some sort of amazon echo-like device, using Google now for tasks.
But there's a problem: the WiFi (as well as mobile data) is off, and I can't make it turn on.
Obviously I tried to simply say "OK, Google, turn WiFi on" but that doesn't work, as all I get is a message that there's no connection.
I did some research and saw that is possible to turn on via adb, but USB debugging is off, so that doesn't work (for what I understood at least, I'm not exactly a pro I'm this stuff).
That's basically it, I'm wondering if anyone has any idea for a workaround for turning the WiFi on.
Anyway, thanks in advance for the help.
Some extra info: I'm running 100% stock 5.1.1 (I think, not sure what the latest update number was), not change to bootloader either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can setup tasker to automatically turn on WiFi or WiFi hotspot on boot.
Also, if you have a windows PC you can control a phone with a broken touchscreen.