Help Constant network activity

[PhilosoRaptor]

This just started a couple day ago randomly;

I'm seeing constant network activity on both WiFi and on the cell signal bars. The little up/down arrows are just staying solid no matter what I do. Sometimes I think it's just stuck displaying the arrows and not actually doing anything, because I can disable WiFi/mobile data and the arrows stay. But today I'm back at work and it's killing my battery. I was down from 100% to 89% in the 25 mins it took me to get to work with it just idling in my pocket and zero usage. The phone is staying warm too like it's constantly downloading/uploading something.

Things I've tried:

- Rebooting the phone (several times).
- Toggling WiFi/Mobile Data and airplane mode
- Downloading an app to monitor network usage (since there's no way to clear stats in the native data usage monitor). Most of my usage is showing under "System Traffic". So that's pretty vague and doesn't help me much. It's only done 4.65 MBs in the last couple hours though. The rest are < 1 MB and are services that I have always kept running (K-9 Mail, news/weather widgets, etc.)

Not sure what else to do besides that. It might actually not be transfering data, but just showing the arrows for some reason. The bad battery drain from this morning may be unrelated, but I'd like to fix this to see still. Keeping it charging from the USB port on my monitor is barely keeping up with it. Pretty much keeping it still around 90% .

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[chrisexv6]

Install any new apps lately?

Almost 100% of the time Ive seen weird goings on like this, it was some rogue app that I recently installed. Id start by undoing anything that may have been done recently (are you rooted? Titanium Backup is GREAT for things like this)

As far as power drain, again if you are rooted, look for a terminal emulator in the market.......install it, run it and then type "dumpsys power" (no quotes) at the prompt. I know this works for GB, havent tried it in ICS yet....but it should show you any wake locks that apps might have. Generally the wake locks are what will draw your battery down quickly. I know GB had an issue where there would be a constant GPS wake lock even if you werent using GPS....the fix there was to open Google Maps and then just exit out. Not sure if that still applies in ICS or not. Eagerly awaiting the arrival of my GNex later this week

 

[PhilosoRaptor]

Nope, not that I can remember. I've had a few app updates, but I can't remember which ones. I wish there was a way to sort apps by install/modified date. I thought the same thing so I've also tried killing every running service and the arrows still stay solid both ways. Like I said, I can even disable mobile data and the arrows stay . I can catch it right when I wake it up though. For just a second, the arrows are gone when I turn the screen on and wake it up, but almost immediately the network activity resumes upon awakening.

My phone is staying really warm too. While I have it on USB charge, it reports around 40

 

[chrisexv6]

Any widgets on any home screens? For some reason I seem to remember one of the widgets I was using causing a constant data draw. I want to say it was News/Weather widget (not the app in app drawer).

I think the Appbrain website shows a complete update history on apps, so worst case you could search the site for each of your apps and see whats had a recent update.

Grab the System Panel app from the market, pretty sure you dont need to be rooted to use it.......you can see whats running in the foreground, background, etc.

Also try to get Spare Parts........Im unsure if that needs root access though. There is a nice usage stats section that will show you %-ages of what is using what (network activity, battery, etc). That might help narrow things down a little.

 

[PhilosoRaptor]

Any widgets on any home screens? For some reason I seem to remember one of the widgets I was using causing a constant data draw. I want to say it was News/Weather widget (not the app in app drawer).

I think the Appbrain website shows a complete update history on apps, so worst case you could search the site for each of your apps and see whats had a recent update.

Grab the System Panel app from the market, pretty sure you dont need to be rooted to use it.......you can see whats running in the foreground, background, etc.

Also try to get Spare Parts........Im unsure if that needs root access though. There is a nice usage stats section that will show you %-ages of what is using what (network activity, battery, etc). That might help narrow things down a little.

Awesome, found it with System Panel! It was K-9 mail. I could see that my phone had a constant stream of at least 3-4 kbps down and up. I started killing tasks starting with the most active from the top and K-9 was like the 3rd one. As soon as I killed it, the network activity immediately stopped, then restarted (because the service immediately restarted). So I went to the native data use app in ICS and restricted background data on it. No more network activity!

I do remember a few updates for K-9 sometime last week, so I guess that's what did it. Thanks to System Panel, I was able to track it down almost immediately. I think I'll pay for that full app now .

Thanks a lot!