Database Users

Strange issues by removing DRM services - running DK28

I am currently running ViperROM(DK28) version 3.0.3. I followed all of the instructions for fixing GPS on 2.2 and then flashed to this ROM.
Whenever I remove the DRM services I notice 2 strange things that happen:
1. Quadrant is not able to complete, it gets stuck on the first test at the Video Decoding.
2. I'm unable to select a new ringtone notification in handcent, when I press OK for my selection it hangs and I have to FC it.
The reason I want to remove the DRM services is that it appears to negatively affect battery life. I notice an improvement when they are removed. If I restore the DRM services everything starts working good again.
Any ideas?

I wont flame you,but this has been discussed plenty,search please...Anyway,you cant remove any of the 3 without losing some funcionaliy.So the only thing you can do is disable the one that runs at boot,not uninstall.I have tried this tip that orked for a day,once you have a fresh rom installed,play some music,watch a ripped movie,change a ringtone and notification,then remove all 3 services with sdx app removal or any other method you like.But like I said this will not work for more then 2 days at most
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

You're not the only one running into this issue.
I ended up rooting my Epic to get rid of all the sprint bloatware and what-not. Everything seemed to be going smooth from the stock standpoint. I removed Samsung Media hub first. Rebooted the phone and noticed nothing bad. Played around with the setup like that for a few days with no problems.
I next got rid of both the DRM service .apk's that were still running even after I got rid of the media hub... and then the problems started. For the first couple days I noticed DRAMATICALLY IMPROVED battery life and EXTRAORDINARY performance so I imagined what I did was a good thing: WRONG! A few days later, I noticed that if I assigned a sound to a notification or a ringtone *from the SD card*, that it would not work. I couldn't play sounds anymore and instead whenever I went to adjust the volume with said notes/tones selected, the Sound_service would crash.
However, I'm the only person I knew before now who has reported this issue so I'm sure there's not a lot of hubob to fix it. Every Epic is built different. Same parts or not. It's a mass-manufactured phone and each one will have its own quirks. There's my 2 cents.

I just froze the apps when I rooted with Titanium Backup but I thought I did something wrong and figured out that sound from apps seems to trigger the software crashes. No point if fixing it now. Flash DI18 and get the EC05 update and/or get EB13.

dyehya said:
I just froze the apps when I rooted with Titanium Backup but I thought I did something wrong and figured out that sound from apps seems to trigger the software crashes. No point if fixing it now. Flash DI18 and get the EC05 update and/or get EB13.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So can anyone confirm that the EC05 fixes the DRM issue? Otherwise there's no point in upgrading. I saw the release thread on here. Hecka people already having problems with the EC05. To upgrade for the Sprint ID packs? Won't see me do it...

Just let it do its thing. The amount of functonality you lose removing it is not worth the minute amount of battery life you'll save.

stir fry a lot said:
Just let it do its thing. The amount of functonality you lose removing it is not worth the minute amount of battery life you'll save.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have to disagree about the amount of battery life I'm saving being minute. When I had this damned DRM service running, I maybe got 10-12 hours with moderate usage. Without it running and now with SRF1.0.2 running (gets rid of IQ), plus SetCPU to (clocking 200-400 when screen off, undervolting 1.0-1.2 during usage) I'm getting a good 20 hours with heavy usage or I can go 2 days without charging if I only use texting.

I do actually remember getting a good bit more battery from deleting the DRM but at the end of the day I'd rather have my music files and apps work properly. I'm used to keeping a charger on me, its just the nature of owning a smart phone.

Yeah I'm with you on that one. Hopefully this will be one challenge [ACS] will be up to digging into.

I just tried stopping it in the running services menu and tested it on a few things with no issues. Doesn't take more than 15 seconds. I'll probably start incorporating it in to my TWS/Airplane mode routine (which just happens to need around 15 seconds supposedly) whenever I reboot.

That's what alot of other people have been saying too. I guess that's what I have to do.
Some threads on SDX about this say you can use some killers to stop it at bootup (personally I've always hated killers since Android 2.0, you don't need them anymore). As long as the .apk and .odex's are there. It's only when you uninstall or freeze it that you start to run into problems 1-3 days down the line.

I use Startup Auditor and it only kills it briefly. I've read all the arguments against Task Killer but I'm still a fan of it. Its especially useful to see what programs start up on their own and I do notice better performance after killing the ones that have no business being open. For everything else I just set it to ignore them.

How I solved a big part of my Atrix Battery Problem

So I got my Atrix just over a month ago. For the first week to two weeks, battery life was GREAT! But then suddenly I'd used 70% of my battery in 3 hours, and wasn't getting through the day.
Sure I'd downloaded a few apps, but the focus of MY device is personal email and phone calls, and that usage hadn't changed. So SOMETHING was amiss!
I looked at the apps I'd downloaded, running apps in the background, and I REALLY didn't see the issue. So for a week my battery was nearly dead. One night I LET it die. Ran it into the ground and charged it ALL the way back up. It seemed better for a day or two, but then the problem seemed to come up again...
Frustrated, but not wanting to have to Factory Reset my device, re-root, re-enable tethering on my data plan, etc... I looked for other options. And about this time, my Social Networking app wasn't updating. Figuring I didn't really need it anyway, I first disabled it, then used a 3rd party app to uninstall it. The icon is still in the phone, and I can still open it... but it NEVER updates.
Well, since doing that... my battery life has been MUCH better! I think the Social Networking was keeping the radio running WAY more than it needed to be. And now that it's disabled or whatever, I'm not having 1/2 that battery drain. Getting through the day isn't such an ordeal, and I LOVE my phone again!!!
Dunno if this will work the same for others, but thought it might help a few folks. Best wishes!!!

What 3rd party app did you use to get rid of it?
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App

Ramsport said:
What 3rd party app did you use to get rid of it?
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use titanium backup to freeze it, no need to uninstall
Sent from my Motorola Olympus using XDA Premium App.

merkman said:
So I got my Atrix just over a month ago. For the first week to two weeks, battery life was GREAT! But then suddenly I'd used 70% of my battery in 3 hours, and wasn't getting through the day.
Sure I'd downloaded a few apps, but the focus of MY device is personal email and phone calls, and that usage hadn't changed. So SOMETHING was amiss!
I looked at the apps I'd downloaded, running apps in the background, and I REALLY didn't see the issue. So for a week my battery was nearly dead. One night I LET it die. Ran it into the ground and charged it ALL the way back up. It seemed better for a day or two, but then the problem seemed to come up again...
Frustrated, but not wanting to have to Factory Reset my device, re-root, re-enable tethering on my data plan, etc... I looked for other options. And about this time, my Social Networking app wasn't updating. Figuring I didn't really need it anyway, I first disabled it, then used a 3rd party app to uninstall it. The icon is still in the phone, and I can still open it... but it NEVER updates.
Well, since doing that... my battery life has been MUCH better! I think the Social Networking was keeping the radio running WAY more than it needed to be. And now that it's disabled or whatever, I'm not having 1/2 that battery drain. Getting through the day isn't such an ordeal, and I LOVE my phone again!!!
Dunno if this will work the same for others, but thought it might help a few folks. Best wishes!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the same problem and did the same thing and it solved my problem also.

Just tried that, and unfortunately I'm still having the terrible battery problems. Battery barely lasts through half the day

you know, your phones come with a battery manager in settings, so you can see what app / service is draining it.
Instant messengers for example, no matter which one, drain the battery a lot.
I usually turn the phone on at 7:30am and turn it off at 12:00am and am left with 40% battery, although i am a very light user. One gmail account, one twitter account with 15 minutes sync, whatsapp, light browsing and sometimes a phone call here and there.

If you are using Facebook, the new update seems to be killing my battery. I force stop the app after every use.

How I got my Battery Life Back!!

Through this forum and others, I was able to restore my battery life on the epic back to the 20 odd hours. I thought of writing my process here for the benefit of those who might be struggling with similar issues:
ROM: Clean GB
Tools: Better Battery Stats and Battery usage graph (BetterBatteryStats from the market. I think there is another one that is free. I will try and find it. However, the graph referred to is the one that is built it. When you see battery usage, click on the the top part and it shows the graph of battery drain. )
Observation: There is unusual usage of phone when the screen is off. The phone wakes up roughly once every 2-3 minutes even when the screen is off. Battery life between 3 and 5 hours. Emails do not sync or slow to sync.
1. Removing DRM files: The three said files were frozen using Titanium Backup. However, when I looked under battery usage/Android, I would still see DRM listed. So in the end, I UNINSTALLED all three files and the DRM was no longer listed. Not sure how much of a culprit it is but worth mentioning if you are freezing the files assuming they are not coming up. Check under Battery:
2. Calendar: This was the main culprit: Calendar storage was damaged on the phone and so, the phone was constantly polling to sync my calendar, in turn, running the battery down and making the phone slow. Cleared Calendar Storage using Titanium and that fixed the problem of syncing.
Emails:
1. Hotmail : Activesync (now on 1 hour polling)
2. Corporate: IMAP (1 hour)
(Above two running on Enhanced Email client). Not sure if standart client will also work, will test that and post later)
3. Gmail: using gmail app
Worth mentioning, that I used Enhanced Email and turned on logging to really see what was going on, hence coming to the issue of Calendar taking forever to sync.
3. SNS: The symptom was that SNS would be constanting restarting when seen under Applications/ Running services. Freezing the 2 sns files took care of that. Lost facebook status messages etc for contacts but made the phone faster.
4. KERNEL and CWM : Initially, although the phone was rooted, CWM was somehow, not FULLY installed. And for some reason, the phone would go to Sprint Recovery Menu. Also, worth mentioning, kernel usage was high. Installed the Clean_kernel and the latest CWM till I was satisfied the install was good and clean. A good way to test is to watch kernel usage on better battery stats and CWM behaviour when you go to Recovery.
5. Moved all content of SD card to PC and reformatted it. However, my SD card was fine, so did not see a change in performance, however, others might benefit, especially if you have movie files that the system is having a problem parsing.
I will add more if I think I missed something but doing the above took my phone from a paltry 3 hours on standby to more than 20 hours with usage. Totally acceptable and happy.
Hope this helps others.

Thanks, there's some interesting information in your post!

I cannot find either of those battery tools on the market... I also run clean GB...

I took into account what you mentioned, and removed SNS completely, hell I went a step further and just uninstalled the FB app. I will use the mobile site, and that is fine and dandy for me, I don't really need or want the constant notifications anyways.
I recommend the app Juice Defender, get the ultimate version, either pirate or paid, it is well worth it. Manages your 3g and wifi better, turns them off when the aren't needed, turns them on when they are. Really handy, has at least doubled my standby time.
I also recommend getting CPU Master, and having both it and voltage control on boot. CPU master lets you have profiles based on events, like the screen being off, or the battery getting to hot, again setup properly this also has done a number on my standby time.
Since I just flashed this kernel I haven't run a battery test yet, I am using Legendary 2.1 and IAP 2.0.6. Will run a test tonight to see how long the battery lasts for standby, hopefully it will turn on in the morning, it hasn't in the past very often.
---------- Post added at 07:30 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:26 AM ----------
Milkman00 said:
I cannot find either of those battery tools on the market... I also run clean GB...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't used the graph, in order to find Betterbatterystats it has to be spelled just like that

Yes, BetterBatteryStats from the market. I think there is another one that is free. I will try and find it. However, the graph referred to is the one that is built it. When you see battery usage, click on the the top part and it shows the graph of battery drain.
The important part that I wanted to see was when the screen is off, is there any activity, meaning the phone is not truely speaking. At when the phone was at its worse, there was a activity roughly every 2 minutes. That was the main cause of the battery drain.

saramon said:
I took into account what you mentioned, and removed SNS completely, hell I went a step further and just uninstalled the FB app. I will use the mobile site, and that is fine and dandy for me, I don't really need or want the constant notifications anyways.
I recommend the app Juice Defender, get the ultimate version, either pirate or paid, it is well worth it. Manages your 3g and wifi better, turns them off when the aren't needed, turns them on when they are. Really handy, has at least doubled my standby time.
---------- Post added at 07:30 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:26 AM ----------
[/COLOR]
I haven't used the graph, in order to find Betterbatterystats it has to be spelled just like that
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cant say much about those tools cause I havent really used them. However, in my case, the problem was a bad calendar sync and SNS, I can see Juicedefender would maybe improve the battery life as it wont let the phone connect, but wont necessarily correct the issue at hand. Just my two cents.

saramon said:
I took into account what you mentioned, and removed SNS completely, hell I went a step further and just uninstalled the FB app. I will use the mobile site, and that is fine and dandy for me, I don't really need or want the constant notifications anyways.
I haven't used the graph, in order to find Betterbatterystats it has to be spelled just like that
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FYI: I have the facebook app installed and it works fine. The problem is in the SNS when you put in your facebook info and it lets you sync fb events etc.
Also, by removing, I am hoping you mean you froze or deleted those two SNS files. Just watch Applications/Running to see if you see SNS there. If not, you are golden.

4hours of battery =) blazerRom is the best out right now. Thought it usually would be at 2% with 3g on and not wifi allday
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

My phone stays "awake" constantly. How can I figure out why it is staying awake??? I think that is a big part of my battery problems.

Milkman00 said:
My phone stays "awake" constantly. How can I figure out why it is staying awake??? I think that is a big part of my battery problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Betterbatterystats has a listing of programs under partial wake lock. See which is using up the most time.

hindibuff said:
Worth mentioning, that I used Enhanced Email and turned on logging to really see what was going on, hence coming to the issue of Calendar taking forever to sync.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do you turn on logging in enhanced email?
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda premium

sethlo said:
How do you turn on logging in enhanced email?
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This might help:
http://enhancedemail.net/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=4&sid=25404e9a1c5b7b2471d2e184a1fbb6e2

saramon said:
I recommend the app Juice Defender, get the ultimate version, either pirate or paid, it is well worth it. Manages your 3g and wifi better, turns them off when the aren't needed, turns them on when they are. Really handy, has at least doubled my standby time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also highly recommend this app, and have realized enormous power savings from it. My phone takes microscopic sips of electrons when in standby with JD.
However, I most emphatically DO NOT recommend that anyone be a thieving, pond-scum, crook with the ethics of a crack whore and obtain a pirated copy of this app, as saramon has recommended above. The author if this app has spent a lot of their time developing it, and should be compensated fairly. It is one of the best supported, most often update apps around. For the value it provides, there really isn't any legitimate argument justifying stealing it to avoid a few bucks.
Shame, saramon, shame.

I purchased JuiceDefender but ended up uninstalling it. Much easier just to toggle wifi and sync on-off manually, rather than tweaking it constantly. I found that the app causes more connection hassles and permission annoyances which offset any battery saving benefits it offers, and is yet another ram-draining backround process that slows my phone.

Never said that I did, but not everyone can afford it, just sayin'

hindibuff said:
3. SNS: The symptom was that SNS would be constanting restarting when seen under Applications/ Running services. Freezing the 2 sns files took care of that. Lost facebook status messages etc for contacts but made the phone faster.
4. KERNEL and CWM : Initially, although the phone was rooted, CWM was somehow, not FULLY installed. And for some reason, the phone would go to Sprint Recovery Menu. Also, worth mentioning, kernel usage was high. Installed the Clean_kernel and the latest CWM till I was satisfied the install was good and clean. A good way to test is to watch kernel usage on better battery stats and CWM behaviour when you go to Recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had 2 questions. First, what exactly is SNS? I see it restarting a lot as well, but I've been afraid it was something important so I've always left it alone.
And how would ClockworkMod affect battery life? Doesn't that only come into play when going into recovery mode?
Thanks

TheSkipperCDB said:
I had 2 questions. First, what exactly is SNS? I see it restarting a lot as well, but I've been afraid it was something important so I've always left it alone.
And how would ClockworkMod affect battery life? Doesn't that only come into play when going into recovery mode?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have SNS restarting it's probably because you removed the stock "Feeds & Updates" widget that came with your phone. Either freeze SNS in Titanium Backup (rooted), put the F&U widget back on one of your screens (unrooted) or kill it after every reboot (unrooted and no F&U widget).

saramon said:
Never said that I did, but not everyone can afford it, just sayin'
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He's not suggesting that you did. He is just saying that you shouldn't suggest it to others.
Piracy is for children that want to feel savvy because they know how to steal Photoshop. Thepiratebay.org, kat.ph, isohunt, and the various novas aren't original or cool, everyone knows about them. The difference is that some people have grown up and understand that people that do work deserve to be paid for it.
Besides it is what? $2-3? Anyone with the intention to buy a product could afford that.
I bought After Effects, Sony Vegas, and Photoshop Elements. Elements I got on sale for $50. The others were a couple versions old and I got them for $300 and $150 respectively. I am a poor college kid. However, I know I can get a part time job and pay for the things I need and that's what I did. I only needed to work for about a month to buy all my software and now I have a legal license to use it. So Sony and Adobe won't try to steal the rights to everything I make >.>
In short, stuff only seems expensive if you have no intentions of paying for it in the first place. My family lives well below the poverty line and I still can afford a pretty decent production set up. I'm sure anyone could conjure up $2. It's less than a round trip bus ride.
I know this was long enough, but I figure I should mention this isn't an attack on you or anyone else. I feel very strongly about the subject and I would say this regardless of who brings the subject up. I have a lot of friends that disagree with me and I have pirated software in the past, I just think that people deserve the money they worked for. Perhaps prices could even go down if everyone actually paid for their software.

I got some life back out of my battery with CM7. Then went back to ERA legendary. I did all the following:
Wiped / reformatted the sd card, odined and repartitioned, odined ec05, odined CWM5, flashed ei22, flashed the rom, then kernel I wanted to try, multiple setups.... no avail. (Monitoring every combo with battery status)
What I have done now is repackaged the rom, removed the "stock" launcher (swapped for zeam) and a couple apks I though were pointless to me, and replaced the kernel so there is all only one flash. I am really starting to think mix_n_match flashing was causing an issue for me. Also, CWM 5 odined and not using the app is not giving me all the aformentioned issues or running as a background process...
So far my battery life is much better with one flash, but one thing I notice in all cases is after a reboot, better battery stats shows "system" under process tab, always highest on the list. Once charged it goes away until a phone call, reboot, and even after forced sync.

SNYPE2K9 said:
He's not suggesting that you did. He is just saying that you shouldn't suggest it to others.
Piracy is for children that want to feel savvy because they know how to steal Photoshop. Thepiratebay.org, kat.ph, isohunt, and the various novas aren't original or cool, everyone knows about them. The difference is that some people have grown up and understand that people that do work deserve to be paid for it.
Besides it is what? $2-3? Anyone with the intention to buy a product could afford that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my troll post for the day.

[Q] Bad Battery?

Is there a way I can officially know if I have a bad battery on my LGG2? When I had purchased the phone, I never really took interest in it because of it's battery life, but after hearing that it has a great battery life I thought mine was lacking. I hear people having it go for two days without a charge. Yet mine was being charged once a day or more at least. I had batterydoctor installed, and when I had it, it would say I got about 22 hours or so normally. Then 17 or so.
I took the phone to the AT&T service center to get a replacement as I felt as if the battery was bad. Yet after getting the new one, I feel as if I'm having the same problem or even worse.
I'm still getting below 20 hours, and the battery seems to die faster than expected. I do not do a lot on my phone as it is. I had previously only had BatteryDoctor control the CPU, but I purchased SetCPU to get a bit better control on my CPU. I read push notifications was more efficient than 15 minute intervals, so I set those on my email apps. I don't have a lot of widgets, or even more than two. My screen brightness is usually below half.
Am I just plagued with a bad battery, or am I doing somethings wrong here? Anymore I can do?
Along the lines of this, is there a list of what bloatware apps I can uninstall from the LGG2? I had uninstalled a lot, but I'm not really sure what is still safe or unsafe to uninstall.
The built in battery manager as of now expects my battery to last around 6-8 hours, while battery doctor says 15 hours.

You can't uninstall anything that your system needs unless you're rooted and using an application manager to uninstall, such as Titanium Backup. If you're removing apps from the stock app page, you'll be fine to remove anything that is removable.
I'm sure your battery is fine, but you didn't give us any hard proof of what's going on. Go into your Settings and check the Battery section after the phone is down to about 50% or so. My guess is, that Google Services will be the main battery culprit, with Screen somewhere behind it.
If Google Services is what's chewing through your battery, you're not alone. The easiest way to fix the issue right now is to disable Google's Location Services.
If that's not what's causing your problem, please report back here with more info and we'll try to get you sorted out.
Sent from CAMACHO, my Verizon G2 (VS980) running PAC ROM 4.3.

Vepaot said:
You can't uninstall anything that your system needs unless you're rooted and using an application manager to uninstall, such as Titanium Backup. If you're removing apps from the stock app page, you'll be fine to remove anything that is removable.
I'm sure your battery is fine, but you didn't give us any hard proof of what's going on. Go into your Settings and check the Battery section after the phone is down to about 50% or so. My guess is, that Google Services will be the main battery culprit, with Screen somewhere behind it.
If Google Services is what's chewing through your battery, you're not alone. The easiest way to fix the issue right now is to disable Google's Location Services.
If that's not what's causing your problem, please report back here with more info and we'll try to get you sorted out.
Sent from CAMACHO, my Verizon G2 (VS980) running PAC ROM 4.3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am aware I can't uninstall anything my system needs, but I am not aware of what my system needs and does not need. I know of the obvious bloatware applications, so I uninstalled those. As for other things, I am not sure of. I would like to get rid of any unneeded apps that I will not use or have no use for as much as possible. And my device is rooted. And I do use Titanium Backup.
Sorry about that, I'm not good at explaining things most of the time. I'm not really sure as of what proof is needed. Though I have checked before. Google Services seems to come up often. Android System is the second I usually see as well. Screen usually comes into third or lower. I will disable the Location Services and see how things work out.
Thanks for the help so far. If there is any other info that is needed, I will try my best to provide such things.

As far as debloating goes, I recommend installing a modified stock ROM, such as Malladus. That way you don't have to compile a list of things that can or can't be removed.
If my previous fix doesn't work, try downloading an app such as Better Battery Stats ($2.89) or Wakelock Detector (free). They will tell what's keeping your phone awake.
And then you can use an app like Greenify to prevent specific pesky apps from waking your phone and causing massive battery drain. You can use Greenify to stop Google apps as well, but it will prevent notifications from all of their apps. For example, instead of disabling Location Services on my phone, I prevented Google Maps and Google Play Services from causing wakelocks. Which worked great to keep my battery running, but it also prevented Google Voice from notifying me of new text messages and the Play Store wouldn't do automatic updates. Still, if you can live without these features, that might be another option for you until Google gets their stuff fixed.
Sent from CAMACHO, my Verizon G2 (VS980) running PAC ROM 4.3.

Vepaot said:
As far as debloating goes, I recommend installing a modified stock ROM, such as Malladus. That way you don't have to compile a list of things that can or can't be removed.
If my previous fix doesn't work, try downloading an app such as Better Battery Stats ($2.89) or Wakelock Detector (free). They will tell what's keeping your phone awake.
And then you can use an app like Greenify to prevent specific pesky apps from waking your phone and causing massive battery drain. You can use Greenify to stop Google apps as well, but it will prevent notifications from all of their apps. For example, instead of disabling Location Services on my phone, I prevented Google Maps and Google Play Services from causing wakelocks. Which worked great to keep my battery running, but it also prevented Google Voice from notifying me of new text messages and the Play Store wouldn't do automatic updates. Still, if you can live without these features, that might be another option for you until Google gets their stuff fixed.
Sent from CAMACHO, my Verizon G2 (VS980) running PAC ROM 4.3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will give it some thought on using either a modified or custom ROM. I have not yet tried that with any phone I have had before because I'm afraid that normal phone functions might not work. That and I did not have too much experience in messing with ROMs, but I have now done so on my tablets. Though I might still look for a list just in case.
I will look into these two apps to see how they might work and if they will be any benefit. I have heard of a couple other apps to try and extend the battery life as well.
I might look into Greenify as well. It sounds like it could have its use, but I'm not sure I would really use it as such. I did enjoy using Google Now, but I used it mostly for the weather. I can get any other random weather app and probably be just as fine. I don't think I ever used Location Services for anything else other than Google Now or Maps. Which if I need to use the GPS, I can turn it on once again.
Is using such apps like SetCPU a good idea? Or does that make things worse?

Hight CPU and battery usage on idle system; restarts don't help

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.
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Will try that, thanks!
blackhawk said:
Being rooted you have more options... use them.
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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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?
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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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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.