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Help There's no way Gallery should use this much battery.

Sam222

Newbie
Aug 7, 2013
18
5
Here's the situation. Last night, I fully charged my phone to 100%, took it off the charger, and went to sleep without touching the phone at all. When I woke up, my phone was all the way down to 82%. I'm sorry but that is just wrong. Investigating further, I found that Gallery took up a whopping 33% of my battery, while Device Idle took up 28%. Any reason why Gallery would take up so much battery? I have auto-sync disabled and have all automatic uploading turned off. Would using a 3rd party gallery app solve this? What's the deal here?
 

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Thanks for the suggestion man. I actually did some research prior to posting this thread and that's one of the solutions that popped up. I'll try it and let you know if it works.


Apparently Picasa and Google+ will constantly try and sync with the Gallery even if you have sync turned off. I like to think I'm at least semi-knowledgeable about the Android OS, but that baffles me.
 
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Thanks for the suggestion man. I actually did some research prior to posting this thread and that's one of the solutions that popped up. I'll try it and let you know if it works.


Apparently Picasa and Google+ will constantly try and sync with the Gallery even if you have sync turned off. I like to think I'm at least semi-knowledgeable about the Android OS, but that baffles me.

I suspect it's not just Picasa, but Google's new Auto Back up option which uploads gallery (photo and video) to G+'s private gallery. If your update includes this option, turn it off.

By default all those SYNCs are set ON upon registering the phone with google credentials. And this is the very first thing I turn off, whenever I get new device.

By the way, after you disable the SYNC, you will still have Picasa folder in your gallery. You can remove it by simply clearing the Gallery's DATA in the Application Manager.
This folder is mere mirror of the on line account and doesn't contain actual images.
Clearing data will not physically remove any content of the gallery, just rebuild folder and images index, and get rid off the Picasa folder. TILL THE NEXT SYNC :)
 
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So I followed all of your advice, I manually disabled picasa syncing and double checked to make sure Google+ auto backup/upload is turned off, charged my phone back to 100%, and bingo, problem solved.

At least partially solved. As you can see by the screenshot, my battery is obviously holding up much better, but Gallery is still using more than it should. The only thing I can think of at this point is that there must be a corrupt file somewhere in my gallery, but I have no idea how I would go about finding that. Maybe it's an issue with my sd card? What do you guys think?
 

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So I followed all of your advice, I manually disabled picasa syncing and double checked to make sure Google+ auto backup/upload is turned off, charged my phone back to 100%, and bingo, problem solved.

At least partially solved. As you can see by the screenshot, my battery is obviously holding up much better, but Gallery is still using more than it should. The only thing I can think of at this point is that there must be a corrupt file somewhere in my gallery, but I have no idea how I would go about finding that. Maybe it's an issue with my sd card? What do you guys think?

I am a newbie coming from IOS, I have "auto-sync" turned off and I have all my picasa pics in my gallery and my battery uses ZERO from gallery. I don't understand why your battery is taking so much juice for "gallery", that seems really weird. I don't know what to tell you.
 
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So I followed all of your advice, I manually disabled picasa syncing and double checked to make sure Google+ auto backup/upload is turned off, charged my phone back to 100%, and bingo, problem solved.

At least partially solved. As you can see by the screenshot, my battery is obviously holding up much better, but Gallery is still using more than it should. The only thing I can think of at this point is that there must be a corrupt file somewhere in my gallery, but I have no idea how I would go about finding that. Maybe it's an issue with my sd card? What do you guys think?


In the phones settings go into Data Usage. Scroll down on the list and see if Gallery is listed there. If so, tap on it. Tick the button for restrict background data.

No idea if that will help you, but thought I would toss it out there just in case. I have mine set that way, too.

I also may have missed it, but did you clear the data for the Gallery? If not, try that and then install QuickPic. Most people use QuickPic because Gallery is such a pain in the butt.
 
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Alright guys, checking in again. I followed every piece of advice you guys gave, and my battery life has been a bit better, but Gallery is STILL using battery, even though I don't use it for anything (except for taking an occasional picture). Fed up with this, I decided to try and install QuickPic, and THIS happens. Any ideas why this is happening/any solutions for this? This is getting to be incredibly frustrating :mad: I can't help but start to think that Gallery is acting up in some way and blocking the install of quickpic. I already did a google search on this and found nothing.

I would like to avoid doing a factory reset if at all possible, too much hassle for such a relatively minor problem. Please don't suggest that. Other than that, I'm open to any idea.
 

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Try downloading it without wifi and see if that works:)

I tried it, but no dice. Same error message. Thanks though.

I feel like if I could root my device then I could solve alot of these problems. Unfortunately I see no definitive guide to root the US Cellular model, just ATT, Verizon, and the major carriers. I would love to try, but I don't want to end up with a brick. Regional carrier problems, I guess. ;/
 
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I tried it, but no dice. Same error message. Thanks though.

I feel like if I could root my device then I could solve alot of these problems. Unfortunately I see no definitive guide to root the US Cellular model, just ATT, Verizon, and the major carriers. I would love to try, but I don't want to end up with a brick. Regional carrier problems, I guess. ;/

The Error message is unrelated to your issue. It's a wide spread problem for the past few days, effecting people all around the world.

By the way, you can download Nexus' gallery and camera (one file with both) :) Beside cool android stock gallery, you will gain the photo-sphere (360x180 photo). It runs just fine in parallel with the stock apps.


How To Install Android 4.3 PhotoSphere Camera! | HighOnAndroid.com
 
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I finally got Quickpic to install. I might be wrong, but I feel like the next logical step is to disable the default Gallery app. When I try to to that it says "Disabling built-in apps may cause errors in other apps". Should I be concerned?

Not overly concerned no, I disabled it when I was experiencing a lot of force close issues with the gallery app. The only downside was that I couldn't set my own lock screen wallpaper, if anyone knows a workaround to that it'd be much appreciated, thanks :)
 
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Never mind. I just tested it, tried to use the "best photo" feature with the camera, and when processing photos it force closes and says "unfortunately, camera has stopped". Looks like I have to use the stock gallery :(

This is really infuriating

EDIT - Maybe it was as simple as rebooting the phone. I turned my gs3 off, took my dog for a walk, then came home and turned my phone on. First thing I did was check the battery usage and Gallery isn't even on the list. I'll check back in after my battery drains a bit and let you know if this frustrating problem was solved by a simple reboot :)
 
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Well, looks like my problem is solved. After the reboot, I now have 3.5 hours on my battery, and it's only drained down to 95%. It's been mostly sitting idle, I only powered on the screen a couple times to check the weather and my email, so I'd say it's draining at a very reasonable rate. I checked the battery stats and now Android OS is using up most of my battery, and I don't have a problem with that. Gallery isn't even showing up on the list of things draining my battery.

Moral of the story: If you have a problem with your Android phone, don't overthink it. Sometimes the best solution is also the simplest and most obvious.
 
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