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Ok, I have the task killer app, but not sure how to determine what apps are ok to have running in the background and not suck up juice...
Seems odd to me that all the apps, even some that have an 'exit' menu item still linger after closing.
I searched about this forum (and wiki), but did not see similar questions.
It's probably so obvious that it doesn't register...
Thx!
Don't kill things like Alarm Clock, Messages, Touch Input, etc. Background apps only suck juice and use data if the app's themselves connect to the internet or use background data, if you aren't using background data, then disable it (there are third-party apps to toggle it mobile data and GPS on and off through widgets).
Personally, I used a task-killer and thought it would extend my batter but your battery life doesn't go down any faster killing tasks. My phone runs faster and smoother with it uninstalled and my battery was mostly draining because I had mobile networking on. Turn that off when you aren't using it (including GPS) and your battery life will increase two-fold. Not as much to do with background apps as you think.
Ok, thanks!
I have to Rogers too, but in my readings, everyone has said use the task killer, so I thought that was standard operating procedure. Then surprised a stock system didn't have anything like that installed.
I had left wifi and gps enabled on my Pure (Topaz) and battery life wasn't that bad. Would turn off when not in use. Does this one just stay on all the time?
-P
It will stay on all the time unless you turn it off via Settings or a third-party widget installed through the marketplace. As said in a few topics, Android is a Linux based OS meaning it's meant to handle the loads of apps running at the same time, it's how Linux handles RAM that makes Android fast. Running background apps do not mean they are literally running in the background, like in windows when you open 18 different windows and minimize a few, the programs are still running full capacity. Linux saves the applications settings and puts the application on 'idle' or a 'sleep' mode that allows the application to run in the background without it affecting battery life much. (I believe that's how it works.)
Don't worry about the task managers and just get some third-party toggle widgets installed from the market place.
I should have been more clear in my original question, sorry.
I'm quite familiar with *IX, been using / running / admin since 86.
I was mostly concerned with misbehaving apps (apps in background that continue to chew cycles), or devices that do not go idle when not in use. Generally unusual stuff that will drain the battery, not necessarily the obvious.
My experience with Android prior to this phone with with Android 2.0 as a work in progress on the HTC Topaz (which I am selling), and I constantly used task killer. I'm using it as a bad reference, I know it was in early stages of devel, but it was hard to tell what was draining the battery (and it got very warm).
I just unlocked my Sapphire last night and so far am very happy with it.
One thing that I wondered: is the expectation that if it gets slow, or if memory/swap starts to run low/out, you should reboot it? I guess that is why there is no task killer initially installed?
I'm wondering if there is anything I can disable to reduce my Android OS battery usage. It's always number 2 on the list behind screen. The list of included services has roughly 20 items in it. I tried to include some attachments for you to look at and see if there is something I can do.
rick09 said:
I'm wondering if there is anything I can disable to reduce my Android OS battery usage. It's always number 2 on the list behind screen. The list of included services has roughly 20 items in it. I tried to include some attachments for you to look at and see if there is something I can do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No information whatsoever is given by those screens, get better battery stats and check the wakelocks. My bet is on google services.
I just want to know if I can safely freeze (with TiBackup) anything on that list. Such as Eltest, LG vpn, LG setup wizard, LG eula, LG pc suite etc. Things I don't use. Google play services is in a totally different section and surprisingly doesn't cause as much of a drain.
Sent from my LG-D801
BTW I use the xposed module Amplify to control my wakelocks and Greenify to control running apps. But neither of those help with Android System drain which is a lot of LG stuff that I don't use regularly.
Sent from my LG-D801
Choristav said:
No information whatsoever is given by those screens, get better battery stats and check the wakelocks. My bet is on google services.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here is a screenshot from today, screen on time was 2hrs 48mins at this point, full brightness since I've been outside all day. Location service and sync turned on. Like I said Google services low drain whereas Android System (posted screenshots) is a major drain.
Note... the info below is old hat... I have made a breakthrough to breaking the 10 hr barrier of continual usage. Right now it is still in testing phase, will the latest Google Services and Play Store. Will post my final addition next week or so. Stay tuned!
Yes, I just figured out what is needed to get the most out of stock 4.4.2 with the latest google services as of Jan 15th.
The key is blocking a select set of services within play store and play services.
As of recent, Google has disclosed that more integration and services will be added to the upcoming update. So i aso included disabling auto system updates.
So my list of blocked services will include everything needed to keep your device from creating more battery drain and issues later.
Posted an attached file for a disable service. The config file is to restore, and use to auto block your Google Services. Since it covers a lot of apps, it will take some time depending on how many apps you have that are in the list.
Yes, I included within the configuration file, is disabled un needed services in popular apps. They do not break or create errors. Only a few apps may loose sync or notification functionality, but can be undone within disable service by opening the apps services list and selecting the disabled service to enable it.
Known issues with apps.
Peel smart remote for S5, and for Tab, both have update info pushed to notifications. They no longer do the push through notification, which many users complain about.
Google Geofence service is disabled... no longer are you able to setup a parameter around you to set actions when leaving and entering. Also Maps and other apps that require geofence will not be able to search around your location for active people around you. Though location works just fine, so maps works pretty much like the old way of placing you where you are at, and populating the map with POI Info.
Google Network Location is disabled. Both Google Geofence and Network Location eat up bits of bandwidth and 2% of battery power per hour, no matter if they are used or not. No longer network location will assist in tracking you. Google will rely on GPS only.
Widgets on Google and stock apps, most may not function. I personally dislike widgets as they eat resources, and I can do most anything I need without widgets, and most of the time just as fast.
Google Fileapkintentoperation service, reporting, and measurement service all have been disabled. Don't report any usage back to Google. Does not break paid apps, or play store usage.
Google Sync, on every thing but Calender. Though it does not disable the ability to manually sync google apps. Just because you turn off sync manually, it still is running in background, so removing the sync services keeps things clean.
Google backup services. No need since I use Ti Backup pro
Google package verification, restore, and reschedule services have been disabled in play store. No more pushing of system updates and apk monitoring. I use norton for scanning downloaded apk files.
Some streaming apps may not remember past usage. Blocked some services that track you.
I also use prevent running to keep memory usage low, and keep background apps from running when closed.
Will post a system battery level snap shot and developer system stats to show how things are running, once my battery level hits 5%
7.5 hrs and 19% battery left
Ok, I can assume with certainly, I can get 9.5hrs of continuous battery time from a single charge.
I tested with screen brightness set at auto, 1 hr of Miracast play back of a 720p video, 1.5 hrs of Miracast playback of two streamed shows from channel apps, 1 download of a 1.2gb torrent file, 1 movie download using vpn and channel app. Used Chrome Dev, Outlook and a few minor instances of other apps. Along with a 10 minute test on sleeping and a 10 minute hibernation, to verify no issues popped up with services disabled.
Here is my 7.5hr battery stats and developer apps stats...
12.5 hours always on moderate use
Yep, I get 8% battery use per hour with an mix of light app use. Mind you, most all apps I run are not memory resident. As Google and internet pros have led end users into believing that cached and background apps save on power and speed up multi tasking. Bah!
I did not have the time to run my device a full 9.5 hours in my test initially. So i had to cut short and use data to extrapolate that shutting down background un used services and killing cached and background apps have made an 8 hr device into a performance monster that does not eat battery power to do so.
Since then I have recharged and will try a test run with minimal screen time off and random sparatic app use. My calculations are 12.5 hrs max. Given the 8% per hour discharge with screen in auto brightness mode, power may increase as the environment brightens up.
I assume if using power save mode, having blocking mode on, and with grey scale enabled, my device could achieve 15 hrs always on run time. The only real way to break the 15 hrs always on run time would be to go into airplane mode or and have the display turn off when waiting, but never sleep.
This is all based on a 1% every 10 minutes discharge rate to be able to keep above 15 hrs constantly on run time.
Oops! Forgot to add
I don't reboot much, but realized some may shut down or reboot time to time. If a reboot is done one key component resets time to time on a reboot. Just go back into disable service and open google play services and search for injector. You will see two, but one may be disabled. Just disable the active one and It will take care of the Google services that had started in background. If both are active, something got reset in play services that helps re enable the injector service. You can restore the disable service backup and it should clear up any reset services. Though it will change what services you changed in apps that you needed a service to run. So be sure once you make a change, to back up, so if you need to re apply my play services settings after a restart, it won't undo any of your changes.
As an update... I do get 1 hr of use per every 8% of battery. It took a few discharges and full recharges to have the device recalibrate after doing my disable service setup to kill services not needed and Google play services that eat battery and performance.
I have done a few changes, but they seem to make a minor significance. Once I am done playing around with some tweaks and verifying, I my post an updated config backup, if they turn out to be improvements.
DELETED
======#Deleted#======
Update... 12 to 10 hours continual use on a single charge!
Yep I was board with Saturday Daytona rain... so what better to test my latest tweaks with the latest Play Store and Play Services.
Had to do a bit of digging, as there are many more services that I don't need but may come in handy later... like Google Pay, Ha! ? what a joke! Well actually with every freaking iteration of Google's services and Play Store, one hopes they don't muck up the mess by fixing, or hosing something you expect to run smoothly and efficiently. There is more to it than just way too many services running in background. It's about how the services run cleanly and not become a load when not used.
Well here it is... over 54 services killed in my list! With only one issue... Maps when promptly closed will error, but it is a visual annoyance if anything. So, don't close Maps before it runs for 30 seconds, or you will error closing.
Also don't try and send error reports or debug info, as they are not going to happen!
For the most part manual syncing within google and tied in apps are intact, but most all auto syncing is disabled.
Will post my latest and greatest DisableService backup config for everyone's use, once I go over a few test runs with reboots and other what nots.
Remember to kill History Injection Service manually after each reboot or wait for the reapplication of the backup config to complete.
Finally I see all the speed and battery improvements that KK once touted as major improvements over JP. It was a crying joke that lasted till now.
Only if Google and Samsung would make a tablet work as a tool not a smart phone, then the benefits of using a tablet for intensive tasks will out weigh getting by with ones pocket phone. This is what students need for their devices to be a 100% duty cycle device under high demands during a days use. No tablet can match that while being forced waist battery and resources for Google analytics, tracking, and social media tie in. Tablets are tools not some monkey device that most peeps have in their pocket!
Almost done!
11.5 hrs is currently obtainable on continuous use on a single charge, without Tasker, any battery apps, and greenify. With overlay disabled and forced GPU acceleration. Both are battery draining options, that nobody will enable when going for extending battery times.
I am trying my best to keep PlayServices down to 15% at device idle. It seems that the kernel with play framework will use 5% no matter what I do. Right now the bottle neck to obtain 12 hrs is what version of PlayServices you use.
I am not going to mess with testing each iteration of play services to get 12 hrs of continuous battery use on a full charge.
To obtain the best battery consumption, one may want to tweak their network by use of a sysctl.config file or shell script to run in init.d or smanager. I find ports waiting to end or close will eat at the battery by how the network or should i say by PlayService's active polling.
I find terminating after 45 seconds of waiting instead of 15 minutes more beneficial to longer battery time. As a wee cpu hit, it is not bad, but it compounds cpu hits by making throttling push the cpu at higher levels than without the polling of closed port termination.
You can watch what i explain when watching cpu performance, by turning on block background data while running a few apps, and comparing to the same apps while block background data is disabled. CPU stats will level off faster and be less prone to hit higher speeds when throttling.
As with my original statement, you will need to kill the locationhistoryinjector service as Google PlayServices will enable it at every boot. It Is a key component to find my mobile and device manager.
My config files disable device manager and find my mobile, along with tracking and Google background data.
What you end up with is a cleaner android that is mostly disconnected from Google, yet able to function better and use paid for play apps without issues, outside of some options tied to google services.
I included my app ops config along with my other updated configs. You will need to remove the .txt extension from the prevent.list and move it in the sdcard/android location for the piebridge app files folder.
Done
I removed all previous attachments on my config backups and posted the latest config backups that kill most of Google's chimera functions within android without breaking play store. All services in regards to NFC, Google Security, network location, automatic background sync, and system usage monitoring have been either disabled or hindered, to eliminate performance degradation and battery consumption.
What you get is a sleek fast running OS, that rivals any custom kernel. Believe me, I used what's available here for mods, and found through trial and error, the best method in keeping overall functionality is to slim things down by using the three apps I have configured.
Most feel what is the point to all this... well disabling features in settings, does not stop google from running the services in background. They run and are tied into other services you may use. Once manually disabled, you may find a service you use fail because it relied on the background service google uses to track and monitor. It is not a matter of killing your favorite app, it is a matter of using an app that does what you need privately and without need of so many background services hogging up resources. Google apps are not the best, just give you options in one package, which some like as to being simpler than having to switch between apps.
I may not be as fast as a custom kerneled device running at 1920mhz or throttled down to 100mhz with profiles enabled, but in all aspects to smoothness and overhead generated by kernel manager apps, greenify, Tasker, and amplify... what gains with customization are lost, compared to what you find in my simple yet very effective method to free your device from Google's constraints.
To be secure in apk installation I use Norton, by unfreezing it before installing apps. Then freezing when done.
For device security, I recommend what ever 3rd party apk meets your needs. As you cannot trust google or samsung with device management. You may find a paid app to perform the job, as most free ones will tie into Google's management or location api system, and fail to function. They must use their own set of services, to hook to existing features not Google's services api.
As for NFC this device has none, so it is a mute issue. Syncing of tied in Google services for social and messaging apps, deal with it... your phone should be primary for syncing. It only takes a quick pull down to sync if you are busy within an app or multi tasking.
One last update
I removed another set of backup configs.. luckily nobody got to them as they were intentionally placed a few replies previously. I do such things to keep peeps on their toes as to know what they are doing by actually reading first!
So... what prompted my change was my error log on certain functions and booting.
Made a wee change to clean up errors without loosing performance or battery gains from my weeding out services and background processes.
Also somewhere in my configs a while back locstionhistoryinjector stays disabled. So this Is a set it and forget it deal, no searching for the blasted service to disable after each reboot.
Alright here are my backup config files along with my frozen apps in screen shots. Missing are... ringtonesbackup and a number of widgets that were permanently removed. Also I have included other side loaded apps that are not part of our stock firmware.
Here is a wee trick nobody talks about... when you shut down or reboot, turn on airplane mode before you do so. Reason being, when the device starts up, it will only take 3 minutes from boot to home screen to fully recover into system idle. Once system is in idle, turn off airplane mode. It helps with less lag and a few apps from trying to gain network access during boot, and slowing down system boot tasks. Once network is operational from disabling airplane mode, the apps in my prevent run list will not wake for network access, until launched. Pretty cool beans, aye!
Also as another trick, because play store sends data when removing apps, I recommend using TouchWiz app removal in the app drawer to remove apps, as it does not send data to do so. Ti Backup does good as well, but depending on its settings may communicate with play store to update play store info.
Currently you can have up to 15 hrs of continuous run time with wifi and screen on during idle. Though I imagine about 2 days worth of mp3 playback time when screen is left off, as a player only, and no other app like Dolby Audio to tweak compressed audio.
In my previous reply i found some errors, and removed some attachments.
I have replaced my disable service backup config with a super modified one that give superior operation by removing tap and pay, fit, NFC, proximity, wearable, and allowed some main sources of required services to run, but made the secondary services associated with them disable, to make the primary service ineffective and keep polling down.
I assume either wearable or health have been a major cause to battery drain since KK was introduced. If you look at the txt file, there are about 100 sub services within the play services service that I disabled. 2x as many as I provided before.
Even though some of the services i have tried to combat from effecting the performance and optimizing battery for longer use, the few I had removed being blocked from running, don't seem to have much effect when their codependent services are disabled.
So, what I get is.. OS using 3% to 4%, Android system 2% to 3%, and screen using 94% to 95% of battery power at idle while the screen is on, and waiting for activity.
Though i will have to redo my screen shots for frozen apps, as i had used a testing config for frozen app effectiveness.
Some apps like Google contacts sync must be removed, as It is an evasive sync service. Samsung is not that way with all of its sync services.
What my super modified file does, is unleashes Android 4.4.x power of operation. For the first time with KK, I have eliminated stuttering and multitasking is more like what it should be with background apps or media being ran during tasks. It is the closest thing to running naked KK, but you have full ability to operate paid for apps and apps that require the latest play services.
so may i know what are the detailed steps in order to enjoy this battery trick? rooted device with xposed?
yweising said:
so may i know what are the detailed steps in order to enjoy this battery trick? rooted device with xposed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, I had to root my I467 with kingo root with a PC connection and install super su before removing kingo root.
I will post a revision to my settings soon. I found that I over did keeping google services from starting. So my new method is minimized to allow most all newer technology work. The only big things I killed are Chrome cast, as it is huge and really eats up battery. Thank god for Samsung ' s method to make miracast a user enabled service, not a constantly running one. Geofence and geocode as they are always running as well, and have little use for daily activities. I would think virtual gear Wil need it, but i live my life in the real world around me.
Again, I killed system updates, and some automated sync services that run constantly no matter if you have them disabled in the account.
The only drawback is maps will error if you don't wait for location to lock and the app has been running less than 30 seconds. Plus Network location will always be disabled.
I am finding my latest settings to be best all around.
Will post them by the end of the week.
I have made my disable service less restrictive as the main culprits to battery drainage can be stopped and kept from running without need to add more to the list on google services.
You will not be able to use geo code or geo fence, device manager, nearby services as Samsung's services are better and dont eat battery when not in use, apk ad and anyalitics, self update, chrome cast as it runs and consumes battery even if you dont connect, location history and sharing, network location, place detectioh, and some internal reporting services, along with some sync options in account... but you will still be able to auto sync gmail, photos, drop box, calander, and contacts.
It allows for the most robust google services to still be active, such as fit, wear, notifications, internal messaging system and tap and pay.
You go from over 8 minutes of activity after reboot down to 2 to 3 minutes of cpu activity depending on what apps you run and allow to load in memory.
Just download disable service from the play store, restore the backup file from the internal sdcard and wait for confirmation.
You will need root!
Xposed has two modules that I like to use both backup files are in my previous reply, a few back. I suggest after installing prevent run, to go into the android folder and find the piebridge folder near the bottom and place the backup there, and remove the txt file extension. Once you reboot to activate the xposed module, the app will see and load the backup, before replacing when you change the settings.
Closest to making google services not eat battery
yweising said:
so may i know what are the detailed steps in order to enjoy this battery trick? rooted device with xposed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here my last option to rid battery consumption.
I blocked most all of the internal services that deal with sending data back to google. A revised plan that started with killing the major services first instead of attacking bleeders as in pruning twigs from a branch. I went after the big branch first. So I was able to do more than before in smoothness and least amount of battery drain.
I think I left all the automatic sync still intact, as the reporting branch was more a problem, along with GMS services. Then intents to enable the services, and some upload syncs to kill off 90% of the reporting all together.
The only reports back are analytics and GCM with some GMS tied in. Google Mail and Maps function, but network location, places and geofence features are broken. Mainly because they leak data all the time.
The reason I had to attack my google services deeper, is because History Channel app needed some anti jitter done, as the new app would show a skip every so many seconds of play back.
i managed to flash back to 4.2.2 yesterday, will test it for few days after few cycles of battery charge. might test your backup file if it still cant stand for 6hrs.
wanna get better experience + faster tablet?
just flash CM13.0... I couldn't be happier with my Note 8.0...
samsung's KK is EOL already and slow.... many apps are incompatible anymore....
Crescendo Xenomorph said:
wanna get better experience + faster tablet?
just flash CM13.0... I couldn't be happier with my Note 8.0...
samsung's KK is EOL already and slow.... many apps are incompatible anymore....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I beg to differ... there is not one app I use that I cannot update. In fact a ton of them had been updated in the last 30 days.
Kk is stable, and with the latest google services, and framework 4.4.4 I am able to push 1 hr of continual use on just 6% battery use.
Fact CM as never had a stable build that allows perfect miracast and spen funtionality. Plus I like Samsung's built in features, peeps copy, yet cannot beat. Like S5 QuickConnect, grey scale for reading and low light, color blind for easier to recognize color various paterns developers go nuts with, and interaction control for blocking a user defined segment or segments from touch or spen interaction.
You just need to replace systemui and secsettings on a 4.4.2 stock late release rom on a ATT i467 and bam no brainer.
If I want speed, which is really not worth the trouble, is boeffla kernal.
Right now I am tweaking my settings backup to allow Samsung or Google management tracking, by not breaking any GMS and GCM services, while optimizing boot speed and battery savings.
I found another way to address battery consumption and cpu hogging by google background services.
modded disableservice backup config file to allow managment
NOTE### I will re post my file soon... the one I had posted had some errors in settings, I had locked down too much on play store.
Here is my modded config backup to allow most of the google play features to function. Yet, will block google system updates and monitoring, plus limit traffic on your data plan.
It has been trimmed down to only adust google play store and google play services. No other apps and services are touched.
I blocked automated nearby functions, places logging, network location, geo fencing, app data sync, people and contacts sync, most of the backgroud stats and logging, and playstore security (proven by me as of recent, that it fails miserably).
Replace with a standalone anti virus app that monitors apk installations. Problem is only a hand full will do the job and even fewer will not be resource hogs and compound my tweaks. I would specify my pick, but I don't get paid for my work that may seem to advertise a paid app. If they make money I should for endorsement. Its the yank way so accept it.
All without breaking GMS and GCM services, and syncs to built in calander and fit data. All exteral app syncs can still be managed in accounts. You still have SMS, notifications, management functions, and api functionality.
This version is more like my original that I started with, but has some cool features. One is quicker boot to semi idle than any kitkat google services ever released. Low battery consumption and higher performance in multitasking. Very smooth witout need of a custom kernel.
Note you will need version 4.4.4 Framework, which never got updated automatically. So you will need to sideload. And the latest versions of play store and play services.
Clear out framework data, play services data, and play store data then reboot. Setup play store and services install disable services on a rooted device and load the backup settings file.
I've posted this guide on reddit already, but thought it might be useful here as well. A lot of users promote intense usage of package disablers to reduce battery drain, but this is not required to such an insane extend.
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After experimenting with my S8 for 2-3 months now, I've collected some data and constructed some basic idea on how to fight wakelocks without having to root your device. I'll try to lay down everything here under a few categories.
First of all, I'll say that I tried using my S8 with a package disabler with hundreds of apps and services disabled, and also tried using it with no package disabler at all. I did not see a significant difference. It's too hard to determine if there is one, but I have to note that disabling TOO MUCH can actually hurt your battery usage.
Finally, I settled on using the device with a disabler again, only this time I disabled things strategically after some investigation with battery stats measurement and wakelock detection.
The apps I used were:
BK Package Disabler + BK Plugin
Better Battery Stats or GSam
These are paid apps, but I am happy with what they can do. BK can be replaced with another disabler (as long as it gives you control over individual package services) and BBS can be replaced with GSam Battery Stats, which is free.
General tips on using these apps:
BBS will require your device to have USB debugging enabled, so that you can connect the phone to your PC and unlock the permission manually. You need an ADB command prompt to do that, and you need to give it the following permission with the following command (read more here).
Code:
adb -d shell pm grant com.gsamlabs.bbm android.permission.BATTERY_STATS
You can use BBS if you do not restart your phone while testing. If you do, it will wipe stats and likely not activate for another few hours, or until you charge again.
You should be using BBS to observe Deep Sleep percentage in the Summary tab (which should be above 95% when the phone is left in idle mode for hours), and Partial Wakelocks to find individual wakelocks that come from apps. Kernel wakelocks are hardly ever something you can do anything about and shouldn't be observed too much, no point in that unless you are rooted. The highest kernel wakelocks should be the ones related to your screen-on time - they are easy to point out as their awake time equals your screen on time.
BK Package disabler, or any other disabler for that matter, WILL require admin privileges to work on your device, so keep that in mind.
BK Package disabler should be used in tandem with BBS, only once you have found wakelocks and/or managed to understand which service is the actual cause. I will give examples below.
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So, let's start.
Google Play Services battery drain
This one really sucks and it seems to plague any Android device at some point. Most often than not, this problem will occur after you do a system update without doing a factory reset. Last time it occurred on my S8 was right after I did the AQI7 update, after having very good idle drain previous to updating.
What to do in this case?
Log out of your Google account(s).
Enroll for Google Play Services BETA. To enroll, scroll down on this page and find the beta button OR Find Play services in your App list, and do "Uninstall updates", then update it right after that.
Turn off your phone and then boot it in recovery mode (Hold volume up + bixby key, then also hold power button) and select Wipe Cache - This will erase Dalvik cache.
Reboot the phone and delete system cache from the Storage settings
Log back into your Google account(s).
Charge your device and then observe idle drain overnight, or over a few hours.
If this process does not help your problem at all, you might have to do a factory reset to cure the services issue, or the problem might be related to something else, like a google service from some particular app. Use BBS to investigate wakelocks as you check your idle drain.
If this process helps you, but you see the issue again in future without changing anything, try going to the Developer Settings, look for active processes, and find Google Play services. Open them and then hit 'STOP' for each of their sub-services. Don't worry, they will restart on their own. After doing this, you might reboot your phone as well. Last time this little chore helped me out and the drain went away.
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General Wakelocks
It's normal to get wakelocks even on a perfect system, but BBS will show exact percentages on each of them. Normal wakelocks usually show 0-1% of awake time for a session. If you start seeing numbers like 3%, 7% , 9%, or more, on some specific wakelock, then there is definitely a problem.
Wakelock battery drain will usually appear in your Android System/OS drain stats, so it's impossible to determine without an app.
The most common wakelocks for me are:
- *net_scheduler* wakelock - this one can be related to your WiFi connection. In order to fix it you should have access to the router's settings, and that is not always possible. If you do have access, you can try changing the Wi-Fi channel (choose channel based on Channel Width, for example 40Hz width on 2.4GHz network could use channel 11), and Beacon Interval (set the interval to the highest possible). I found this helped in my case. This wakelock can also be related to google play services - check the previous part of the post on how to possibly resolve the GPS issue. Also, the wakelock can appear under the icons of other apps, when there is little you can do to track down exactly why it happens.
- *com.google.android.gms.measurement* wakelock - this is a VERY common one in my case, and BBS usually shows it comes from Google Services, but always has a specific app icon next to it. In order to resolve this wakelock I had to do the following:
Open my package disabler and go through each app that might be using background data, or the app that is shown next to that wakelock, and then open their lists of individual services. I searched for:
1. AppMeasurementService
2. AppMeasurementJobService
3. Firebase... any service starting with Firebase in its name
These services are related to apps collecting some usage statistics on how you use them and sending them back somewhere, probably the app vendors. You do not need them for any app to be functional, and many apps don't have them. For some reason they can keep your device awake for long periods of time. I disabled them on ALL apps I could find them in and it seemed to resolve a lot of wakelocks after investigating the next following days. This process was probably one of the things that helped me the most with hunting down daily wakelocks as the drain is very stable for me now. For example, today I came back from work with 20 hours of phone usage since charge, almost 1h of SoT and 75% battery left. Other days, I have come back from home with 10 hours of usage, 1.5h of SoT and ~60%. I've seen a lot of improvement lately after doing all of the suggested things and keeping Google services at bay in parallel to that.
---
Bluetooth wakelock
This one was the most inexplicable to me. I never use Bluetooth, or turn it ON for any reason at all. I could not understand why the wakelock occurs.
Ultimately, my solution was to completely disable the Bluetooth System package and all services in it through the BK disabler.
I know this solution doesn't sound good to anyone, but at the same time it might be useful if you also do not use BT at all.
I plan to buy BT headphones in the near future and will be re-enabling this, and at that point I will start observing the behavior of the package once again and maybe turn it on/off at will if the wakelock re-appears too often.
---
Other wakelocks
The general rule here still applies. First, you record your usage with BBS. Then you note down which wakelocks appear on top, and google them as best as you can. Search is your friend here, as the wakelocks are endless and it is impossible for me to list them all and give solutions for even a small percentage of them. Sometimes you might get lucky and find an easy fix. In other times, there will be no easy explanation, or no explanation at all. Such is the nature of Android.
In some cases the wakelocks might be specific services that you can disable for specific apps. In other cases, they will be too general and it will be unclear why they occur. For example, I sometimes get *net_scheduler* wakelock with the Viber app, that can last for 20-30 minutes at random times, and still have not found a way to resolve that, other than uninstalling Viber completely (which is not a bad idea but sadly some of my contacts insist on using that crap. Telegram is your friend).
---
General Tips:
Use an AMOLED black theme. System theme from Samsung Themes (!) and individual app themes / status bar from Substratum. Do not use overlays for the system UNLESS you do not use samsung themes. I found out that Samsung themes do a better job at painting all system apps black, while some substratum overlays miss a few things. It will also be a LOT less painful to update overlays as you uninstall all of them and re-install them, because using Samsung for the system means less packages from Substratum to be installed. REMEMBER to always uninstall system overlays and statusbar overlays (ALL overlays if you want to be super safe) before doing a system update! Otherwise you can soft-brick your device.
Use auto-brightness and make sure to make it as low as you are comfortable with in rooms that you stay often in (like your own room, your office room, etc). Smart auto-brightness will remember you preference and you will hardly ever use more brightness than you need.
Turn off notifications for any apps that are not essential to you. In fact, I have turned off everything except Gmail, because I have a habit of checking my phone very often and do not miss out on anything, while notifications have become a bit annoying to me anyway.
Put almost all of your apps to 'Always Sleeping' in the device optimization app.
Do NOT always sleep apps that you need to be awake, like your Messaging app, Home Launcher, utility stuff like Navbar Apps, Keyboard. Put those in the 'Unmonitored' category instead.
DE-OPTIMIZE your fingerprint scanner from battery optimization settings if you are having issues with waking up the device with it. It is optimized by default if I remember correctly.
If you are feeling BRAVE, you can do your own investigation for each app that you use often to look for any services that might look like Analytics services. Experiment at your own risk, but generally such services are always a benefit to turn OFF for both battery and privacy reasons.
---
Overall, that's it. If I remember something, I will update the thread. Hopefully this can help someone.
In my personal results, I've managed to achieve a 0.3% idle drain per hour with Wi-Fi active during a test of 12 hours of standby. As visible in the screenshot, the Wi-Fi signal is not even perfect.
Here is an example of idle drain with about 1h 10m of SoT at the time it was taken.
---
Feel free to use this guide in conjunction with Neomancr's general battery and performance tuning guide
Thanks!
magarto said:
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem!
This should be on top! Thanks a lot!
The "Service Disabler" functionality has been removed from the latest app version due to Google Play policies.
Fortunately we can find the previous apk version in the developers website.
https://kunkunsoft.wordpress.com/news_2/
Cheers!
hey thanks a ton for this article! My battery is horrible...REALLY. 2 h ost...I've just completed the first part. please explaind better what do you mean with "sign out from Google accounts" step by step. and in my case BBS was not adb enabled...I was not able to see wakelocks. the command explained here https://alexus.org/howto/better-battery-stats-no-root/amp (the google play store version) granted permissions for me. maybe you want to update the guide! I'll let you know how it goes.
cheers
@brokich
Could you please point us exactly to what are the main apps with AppMeasurement and Firebase services?
Until now I have found only the Google play store app.
Thanks for your great guide.
Thanks for the guide. Starting to debug battery issues. Meanwhile tried setting up the black theme. What do you mean by installing only Samsung theme? Do you mean a specific theme made by Samsung electronics or any black theme from Samsung theme market?
Here are the correct adb commands to BBS, as shown in the app in first start:
adb -d shell pm grant com.asksven.betterbatterystats android.permission.BATTERY_STATS
adb -d shell pm grant com.asksven.betterbatterystats android.permission.DUMP
adb -d shell pm grant com.asksven.betterbatterystats android.permission.PACKAGE_USAGE_STATS
My background with android is long and rocky.
A long time ago in a galaxy far away, I had a Samsung Galaxy S, then a S2.
I can remember a Google Nexus phone in there somewhere.
Then at some point I switched over to Windows Mobile for many years.
A couple of hears ago I came back to android with a Samsung Galaxy S8+ and I hated it.
Recently I upgraded to a OnePlus 6T McLaren and here I am.
I had been expecting to see android happily use up 7, 8 or even 9GB of ram before the background task manager would begin to kill tasks.
Except that I seldom saw android use much more than 5GB of ram.
And worse, background tasks were being killed on a regular basis.
Widgets would stop working overnight, or even in just a few hours.
Spotify would close while a playing a playlist.
A quick search on XDA reveals that many users believe that Android will just use up as much ram as your phone has.
However, that is simply not true.
And so, I began my quest to have Android use as much ram as the phone could provide.
In my case, 10GB.
- I understand that there is an inherent trade-off between keeping background apps running and battery usage. I can live with extra battery usage in exchange for keeping my widgets running or Spotify running for an entire playlist.
- I realized very quickly that in order to achieve the results that I was looking for that the phone would have to be rooted. So rooting was one of the first things that I did.
Step 1.
I started with the basic stuff that a quick google search would provide;
- Settings -> Battery -> Battery Saver (off)
- Settings -> Battery -> Adaptive Battery (off)
- Settings -> Battery -> Battery Optimization -> widget app (don’t optimize)
- Settings -> Battery -> Battery Optimization -> Spotify (don’t optimize)
- Settings -> Battery -> Battery Optimization -> Advanced Optimization -> Deep Optimization (off)
- Settings -> Battery -> Battery Optimization -> Advanced Optimization -> Sleep standby optimization (off)
- Settings -> Apps -> Widget app -> Battery -> Background Restriction (app can use battery in background)
- Settings -> Apps -> Spotify -> Battery -> Background Restriction (app can use battery in background)
This helped but not enough to make the widgets or Spotify usable.
Step 2.
I supposed that my specific background tasks that I wanted to keep running were being killed because of the many other apps that were running in the background.
I searched for and found Tomatot DeBloater scripts for the Oneplus 6.
Excellent! Just what I was looking for.
I chose the Tomatot-Debloater-OOS-Light-2.3.zip and installed it.
This helped some more but not enough to make the widgets or Spotify usable.
Step 3.
I realised that there were still some apps running in the background that I didn’t use or want.
So I used Titanium Backup to freeze the following apps;
- Calendar
- Calendar Storage 9
- Contacts (O+)(I replaced with google contacts)
- Dashboard
- Drive
- Face Unlock
- Gboard
- Gmail
- Google
- Google partner setup 9
- Google play music 8
- McLaren AR
- Messaging (O+)(replaced with google messaging)
- OK google enrollment 9
- Oneplus system 1
- Youtube
Perfect! These apps were no longer competing for phone resources with the apps that I wanted to run.
This helped some more but not enough to make the widgets or Spotify usable.
This did make the phone feel faster and smoother.
The phone is much more responsive and fluid to my input.
This made me realize that the apps were being closed not due to a lack of phone resources, but a background task manager being aggressive.
Presumably for battery saving purposes.
I changed my focus to adjusting that background task manager.
Step 4.
Enable the recent screen ‘LOCK’ on the widget app and Spotify.
This didn’t do anything for me.
Everything that I’ve read on it says that it just stops the task from being killed when you click on kill all tasks.
The lock doesn’t lock the task from being killed by the background task manager.
Step 5.
Further google searching led me to believe that the OEM kernel was limiting background tasks.
I choose ElementalX-OP-3.09 and the EX Kernel Manager.
I had to read a lot of google university material to make any sense of the settings in here.
I’m not sure that I fully understand even now.
Eventually, I ended up with the following settings;
Memory
- Adaptive Low Memory Killer (disabled)
- dirty ratio (20)
- dirty background ratio (5)
- min free kbytes (12398)
- vfs cache pressure (100)
Memory -> Low Memory Killer
- apply on boot
- Foreground app (72mb)
- Visible apps (90mb)
- Secondary server (108mb)
- Hidden apps (200mb)
- Content Providers (587mb)
- Empty apps (783mb)
This helped a lot.
This almost made the phone usable to the state that I wanted.
But the widget and Spotify would still stop running overnight and by morning the apps would have to be reopened to get them to run again.
At least the apps would run most of the day without being killed.
Still not the behaviour that I expected from a phone with 10GB of ram.
Ram usage was still not going much over 5.5Gb even if I opened up many apps at once.
Can I ever get ram usage up to the 10Gb that I have?
Step 6.
The last thing that I tried yesterday afternoon was to increase the background task limit in the build.prop.
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_limit=5 (changed it to 60)
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_age=5000 (changed it to 10000)
Yes, I know that I am on PIE and there isn’t supposed to be any effect.
No, I don’t know yet if this had any effect.
I am hopeful.
The widget app didn’t close last night, but Spotify did.
I am getting closer!
This is the best that I could do on my own without asking for help.
So here I am posting my question and asking for help.
How do I get the apps that I want to run to not be killed by the background task manager?
OR
How do I get the phone to use the 10GB of ram?
I feel that I am missing something.
With any luck, one of you smarter persons will be able to point it out to me.
As an aside from all of these changes the phone feels very smooth and fluid.
Except for apps closing that I don’t want to, this phone is a great experience and a pleasure to use.
Apps that I want to run are staying open much longer then before I started.
It’s now just an overnight issue.
And getting the phone to use over 6Gb of ram.
I would suggest that I am 90% happy with it now.
KERNAL: ElementalX-OP6-3.10
ROM: STOCK OOS 9.0.11
PHONE MODEL: 6013 O+6T McLaren
Tomorrow I may try making this change to the build.prop file;
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_enable=true to false
Don't know if it will help or not.
Wow dude, interesting read, i will sign up for notifications from this thread hoping you get your answer because i have the exact same problem but with my work app, throwing it all out of whack and making me a target to big fines (in the $1,000's) and potentially reducing my marketability!
The attached screenies are from before i realized that the app getting killed in the background is what causes the problem (I've left it in the foreground HOURS a few times and it works perfectly!)
UPDATE:
Good news!
I seem to have solved my issue.
Time will tell for sure though.
But this morning and all day today, Spotify and the widget app have been running without closing.
AND I have seen memory usage up to 6.8GB used.
Here are the further steps that I took;
- ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_enable=true (changed it to false)
I didn't really notice much of a change.
But then I noticed that perhaps the limit of 60 tasks was not high enough.
I seem to have that many apps open and limiting to just 60 may be an issue.
- ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_limit=60 (changed it to 120)
THIS!
This seemed to have worked for me.
All apps seem to be open and be staying open.
Today I got a message/warning from android telling me that the widget app is consuming the battery in excess but I ignored the warning and android did not close the app or stop the widget from running.
I will keep an eye on the phone for the next few days to confirm that this actually solved my issues.
My next step will be to see what effect if any this has had on my battery usage.
I am curious to see if it's all that bad...
geeksquad2 said:
UPDATE:
Good news!
I seem to have solved my issue.
Time will tell for sure though.
But this morning and all day today, Spotify and the widget app have been running without closing.
AND I have seen memory usage up to 6.8GB used.
Here are the further steps that I took;
- ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_enable=true (changed it to false)
I didn't really notice much of a change.
But then I noticed that perhaps the limit of 60 tasks was not high enough.
I seem to have that many apps open and limiting to just 60 may be an issue.
- ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_limit=60 (changed it to 120)
THIS!
This seemed to have worked for me.
All apps seem to be open and be staying open.
Today I got a message/warning from android telling me that the widget app is consuming the battery in excess but I ignored the warning and android did not close the app or stop the widget from running.
I will keep an eye on the phone for the next few days to confirm that this actually solved my issues.
My next step will be to see what effect if any this has had on my battery usage.
I am curious to see if it's all that bad...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice find, I checked my build.prop and found this. No wonder my apps are killed
Code:
#ifdef VENDOR_EDIT
#[email protected] modify for app memory
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_enable=true
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_limit=5
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_age=5000
#endif/*VENDOR_EDIT*/
EDIT: I see a lot of custom ROM's have "ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bg_apps_limit=60" to the build prop, I wonder if that going to make a difference
UPDATE:
I am a silly goose.
I broke a cardinal rule while troubleshooting.
I may have had a few too many wobbly pops and made two changes at a time, thus when change was affected, I was unable to determine properly which change caused the affect.
The rule is, "only make one change at a time when testing".
Yes, all of my apps stay open all the time.
I am getting the behaviour that I was looking for.
However it wasn't necessarily changing the build.prop bgservice_limit from 60 to 120 that did it.
Let me back up a bit.
Earlier I had suggested that locking an app to the recent screen didn't do anything for me, and that in my reading it only locks the app from being killed by you when you try to close it manually.
However in reading up on the oneplus framework-res.apk I found a reference to an oneplus whitelist of apps that will never be killed, and a reference to the recent screen app lock that suggests that oneplus will add a locked app to the whitelist and not kill it.
In the course of a single day, I had inadvertently edited the build.prop and locked the widget app to the recent screen thus breaking the one change at a time rule.
So the next morning and the following days when all apps were staying open I attributed it to changing the build.prop not realizing that it could also have been the app lock.
Last night I realized my mistake.
I unlocked the widget app from the recent screen and went to bed.
When I woke up this morning the widget app was not running for the first time in days.
Also the notifications that I was receiving about the widget app consuming excessive battery have stopped.
It would appear that I was wrong in my earlier observations regarding the app lock mechanism.
It appears to be very useful for keeping apps running all the time.
Did changing the build.prop have any affect on keeping apps open?
Maybe?
I have noticed that my battery life has gone for a complete ****.
I can barely get 24 hours out of the phone.
Worse is that it doesn't matter if the screen is on or not, battery usage remains the same.
i.e. with the screen off and the phone put down, battery life appears to be used at the same rate as when the phone is in use.
I had expected the battery life to be not as good, but I didn't expect it to go to for a **** that badly.
There must be a balance between aggressive app management and acceptable battery life.
The phone didn't display this behaviour until I changed ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_enable=true to false.
I think that today I will change ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_enable= back to true and observe the battery tomorrow.
kantjer said:
Nice find, I checked my build.prop and found this. No wonder my apps are killed
Code:
#ifdef VENDOR_EDIT
#[email protected] modify for app memory
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_enable=true
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_limit=5
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_age=5000
#endif/*VENDOR_EDIT*/
EDIT: I see a lot of custom ROM's have "ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bg_apps_limit=60" to the build prop, I wonder if that going to make a difference
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think that ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_limit= and ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bg_apps_limit= are essentially the same thing, except for android versions.
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bg_apps_limit= is for Android 7: Nougat and below.
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_limit= is for Android 8: Oreo and above.
Someone more knowledgeable than me should chime in here though.
Do you think any of this could have to do with the way the phone keeps disabling push in Gmail? (Every other day I need to set my O365 exchange in Gmail back to push because it automatically changes to the default of checking every 30 mins.)
Any conclusion?
Did you guys manage to solve this issue please by editing the build prop?
Latest smurf kernel rc14b seems to have solved the RAM management issue. I haven't had any apps closing in background since using it.
thank you for the thread!
What did you find in the end?
How did you set this ?
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_enable=true
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_limit=5
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_age=5000
So what's the verdict on the buildprop edits? Do they make a difference?
I notice that sometimes my on-going weather notification doesn't update, or gets killed off. I also have an app that controls rotation per app, and that also seems to stop doing it's thing after a while.
Just want to share. If you are rooted with Magisk, try appsystemizer module. System apps don't get killed by oneplus as aggressively. Tried it with accubattery and it works.
I am so glad I stumble across this, I just want to say, changing
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_limit=5 to 120
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_age=5000 to 10000
Keep apps in ram for much longer then original! For me the battery life is unaffected, might even be better.
scloss84 said:
I am so glad I stumble across this, I just want to say, changing
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_limit=5 to 120
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_age=5000 to 10000
Keep apps in ram for much longer then original! For me the battery life is unaffected, might even be better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also want to solve this issue.
On which OOS Version you are? (i am on 10.3.1)
Does this really work in newer OOS Versions?
I have read elsewhere that those settings dont work on newer versions, sadly, cant find the thread/source.
thx
pOpY
popy2006 said:
Also want to solve this issue.
On which OOS Version you are? (i am on 10.3.1)
Does this really work in newer OOS Versions?
I have read elsewhere that those settings dont work on newer versions, sadly, cant find the thread/source.
thx
pOpY
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm actually Oneplus 6, OOS 9.0.9.
I also read that it doesn't work on Android 10 because magisk doesn't mount /system in Android 10, but there is a magisk module workaround that you can use. And hopefully magisk will update in the near future to fix that. Just google "Android 10 can't edit build.prop" and you'll find heaps of info.
This is what I have in my build.prop file and it seems to help. I have Oreo it works great on my phone I don't know about later versions of Oreo.
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_enable=true
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_age=5000
ro.vendor.qti.sys.fw.bservice_limit=5
ro.sys.fw.bg_apps_limit=64