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Running Applications

jonra

Newbie
Sep 23, 2010
41
4
OK, like most here I'm struggling a bit with battery life. Last night for example I was 100% charged when I went to sleep, woke up to the phone at 72%. So yeah, nearly 30% battery lost simply sitting there doing nothing.

So, I have just now killed off the DRM service and media hub in running services in hopes that my issue is what others have experienced.

However... I routinely notice many other apps running in my task killer "Advance Task Killer Free". Just now for example I just shut everything down. I sent a text message to the wife, and now the following apps are once again running:

Voice Dialer
Media Hub
Amazon MP3

There are others that I actually want going, JuiceDefender, SysTray Monitor... but what is up with these above?? I am CONSTANTLY seeing them run. Is there a way to shut these down for good? Why are they starting up on their own? Does anyone know if this is a part of my battery issues?

Any insight here is appreciated.
 
In another thread I was reading that someone went to a sprint store and said that the mediam hub application was what was killing the battery life.

However, I thought that the DRM application was the media hub app? You make it seem like these are two separate apps. After I killed the media hub app. My phone still refused to sleep.

It was sleeping this morning for a bit until I used my phone. Now its back to beiing 100% on and there is nothing I can do about it.

According to the other thread the only backgound apps that should be running are IQ agent, Androidsprintextension, GTalk, and swipe.

Everything else doesn't need to be there... the sprint TV app pops up for me all the time. They really need to address this issue... because I don't know if I can take it. I only have a few more days to decide if I want an evo... but I really want to love this phone
 
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Yeah, on an Epic... and even with Gmail checking and what not, 30% to be in 'sleep' mode? My Instinct batteries were completely toast, but even they would go for like a full day on sleep. By this standard, I could not use the phone for one second and it would be dead by noon if I had charged it the night before. So basically, the phone can kill itself in a matter of hours. Yeesh :(

So I uninstalled the 'advance task killer free' app, the stock task manager only shows 2 things running. Was ATK showing incorrect info? Or is the standard task manager not showing the full story? I have JuiceDefender running and it's not even showing in the list, and on summary it shows 216MB/325MB of RAM being used... this doesn't seem accurate at all :(

So I'm at a loss I guess. 2 weeks to figure out what I want to do, I really want this phone and love the crap out of it... but this is a game-breaker for me.

Edit - As far as the Media Hub and DRM thing... the media hub gets listed as one app, but in running processes it show Media Hub AND the DRM as separate processes. But like I said, I killed it off there and ATK still showed media hub running like 5 minutes later.
 
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Yeah, on an Epic... and even with Gmail checking and what not, 30% to be in 'sleep' mode? My Instinct batteries were completely toast, but even they would go for like a full day on sleep. By this standard, I could not use the phone for one second and it would be dead by noon if I had charged it the night before. So basically, the phone can kill itself in a matter of hours. Yeesh :(

So I uninstalled the 'advance task killer free' app, the stock task manager only shows 2 things running. Was ATK showing incorrect info? Or is the standard task manager not showing the full story? I have JuiceDefender running and it's not even showing in the list, and on summary it shows 216MB/325MB of RAM being used... this doesn't seem accurate at all :(

So I'm at a loss I guess. 2 weeks to figure out what I want to do, I really want this phone and love the crap out of it... but this is a game-breaker for me.

Edit - As far as the Media Hub and DRM thing... the media hub gets listed as one app, but in running processes it show Media Hub AND the DRM as separate processes. But like I said, I killed it off there and ATK still showed media hub running like 5 minutes later.

could you possibly post a screen shot showing what the DRM looks like? Media hub app only shows up as a download manager in running services
 
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i never had any problem with media hub or DRM services stuck running. i have started it once to check it out after the latest update. found it was a waste of money and have not started it since. i checked running services and no media hub or DRM.

i admit, i do not know all the under pinning of ATK and task manager, so i can't tell you if one or the other is not being all accurate. what i know for sure is that if you don't manage ATK appropriately, then it's more of a detriment. i've found that ATK is not necessary with android 2.1+.

here's my recommendation, i understand you have uninstalled ATK. well, do a power cycle and start from scratch now. start juice defender (if you must have it), go into setup, run it so juice defender is reconfigured for the phone, make sure it's enabled then exit.

search here for many of the battery saving issues and i think at least one of those will help.
 
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No clue how to post screens... it's in 'Running Services' though, has 'DRM' in the title, go to Settings>Applications>Running Services.

And the out of the box task manager is no good, unless I'm not going to the right one. I hold the home button down, click task manager - well, stuff I KNOW is running isn't even listed here. Like just now I had 'Dungeon Hunter' attempting to install (again), I know it's there, I can switch to it and it's mid-process... but it's not in the list.

So yeah, to me that's a garbage program. If my ATK app was screwing things up, what one is better?

Well, JuiceDefender doesn't NEED to run, if the battery management can get resolved :p

What is everyone using for task killers? Is mine just screwed up? I don't know, I can say this though, the default one is blatantly leaving out running apps, so to me it's completely useless unless I'm configured wrong or something.
 
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Hmm, I may have killed that. I don't remember seeing just 'DRM', I'll look again here though.

Honestly, I hope to hear about an update from Samsung soon. I know new phones have issues, but all of this is game-breaking for me and it's just not acceptable. It's one thing to have to tweak a phone when it's new to get it working (the airplane mode/time without service bug for example)... but this is getting ridiculous. Rebooting my phone is going to turn into a 40 minute process after all of this :(
 
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Hmm, I may have killed that. I don't remember seeing just 'DRM', I'll look again here though.

Honestly, I hope to hear about an update from Samsung soon. I know new phones have issues, but all of this is game-breaking for me and it's just not acceptable. It's one thing to have to tweak a phone when it's new to get it working (the airplane mode/time without service bug for example)... but this is getting ridiculous. Rebooting my phone is going to turn into a 40 minute process after all of this :(

i agree that we shouldn't have to tweak anything, but unfortunately, that's the demon all smartphones users have to deal with (well, android smartphones for sure). as for battery draining out of control out-of box, that's not normal.

the other problem is, unfortunately more often than not, and this is the crux of an android device due to it's open architecture (as opposed to others like apple), is user errors. i've been there myself, by installing non-compatible app that locked up my phone, installing apps that uses battery more than it should without my knowledge, by killing a service that should be running, etc.
 
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I hear you bad, I suppose it just all comes with the territory. If this is just how new smartphones are, then it is what it is. It's no doubt I ask quite a bit of this phone, I use the living crap out of it - even around the house, I use it as a browser laying around on the couch, a game machine, communicator, etc.

I guess I could go with the extra battery with the charger like I had with my Instinct. Has anyone noticed any wear and tear from taking the back off of this phone a ton? That was my worry originally doing this with the Instinct but it held up great for 2 years.
 
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I always have the drm and media hub showing in the running applications but I have excellent battery life. I also have a minimal amount of applications installed and I stopped using the weather channel widget which seemed to be sucking down my battery. Im sure this has been mentioned before but maybe try a hard reset.
 
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Task killers configured to run in the background can contribute to fast battery drain by killing services that restart immediately, or by settings from an app the user has configured to update in the background, such as weather, etc.

A sort of "loop" will eventuate, often causing slow downs in the system perceived by the user as increasing lag in the keyboard, menus and apps loading. Not to mention wasted battery life.

It's best to use a task manager that allows you to stop services at will, and even then you may be stopping a service that will re-invoke a minute or so later or on the next reboot.

Battery saving measures have more to do with the way you configure and operate your device than anything else, given that you have a good connection with the nearest tower or wifi, which ever you're running, so that it is not constantly draining resources by hunting for a signal. GPS is a culprit, as well, if the signal is weak.

Also, as mentioned before, weather, news and mail apps can kill a battery rapidly if you've set them to update or sync in the background; facebook is a huge resource bandit, for example, and can even go into a "sync loop," causing the battery to drain so fast you'd think it was defective.

If I were seeing fast battery loss, I'd go through my settings for each app and service, taking these things into consideration.
 
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Well, taking everyone's advice, here's what I did:

1) I literally removed all OS-related apps - so task killers, juicedefender, etc. All of it gone.
2) I killed off some running services that I definitely didn't need, the DRM one and some others. None of them have restarted on their own except this 'downloadmanager' associated to the mediahub. Who knows.
3) I set the phone in 'Airplane mode' overnight, so from about midnight until 7am this morning.

It must have been either services running or something I installed. Like you said, the task killer could have been putting things into a bad loop. In any case... I unplugged the phone from the charger yesterday around 3:30 and my battery was listed at 96%. I used the hell out of it last night checking game stats and getting/sending 10 billion txt messages because myself and my whole family are all Bears fans, as are many friends (go Bears!).

All that being said... the battery is at 81% this morning and holding strong. The airplane mode seems to have killed off my overnight issue, and overall this is more what I expect. I don't mind charging daily, but was getting scared of multiple-charges per day on regular use.

Anyways, I'll monitor it. Thanks for all the advice and info! :)
 
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Well, taking everyone's advice, here's what I did:

1) I literally removed all OS-related apps - so task killers, juicedefender, etc. All of it gone.
2) I killed off some running services that I definitely didn't need, the DRM one and some others. None of them have restarted on their own except this 'downloadmanager' associated to the mediahub. Who knows.
3) I set the phone in 'Airplane mode' overnight, so from about midnight until 7am this morning.

It must have been either services running or something I installed. Like you said, the task killer could have been putting things into a bad loop. In any case... I unplugged the phone from the charger yesterday around 3:30 and my battery was listed at 96%. I used the hell out of it last night checking game stats and getting/sending 10 billion txt messages because myself and my whole family are all Bears fans, as are many friends (go Bears!).

All that being said... the battery is at 81% this morning and holding strong. The airplane mode seems to have killed off my overnight issue, and overall this is more what I expect. I don't mind charging daily, but was getting scared of multiple-charges per day on regular use.

Anyways, I'll monitor it. Thanks for all the advice and info! :)

nice job (although i was not rooting for cutler :rolleyes:). people sometime forget that although app developers meant well (most of them anyway, i think) they can't adjust for how the user uses their smartphone or what other apps are running that might be conflicting.
 
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I use switchpro. I do the airplane mode whenever I reset the phone (rare). I turn off the 3g data, when I dont need it. Thats it.

Very light use ofcourse, over the period of 44 hours.. my battery life was around 30%. Lots of texting, few phone calls, alot of wordfeud and pocket empires, checking out apps here and there. Oh, I was connected to wifi about half that time. Would get on the internet every once in a while. I used 3G lightly too.
 
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I've just been using the stock task manager - so hold down the 'home' button, click 'task manager' and you can end applications from there.

As far as killing the processes you don't want (DRM in particular), go to Settings>Applications>Running Processes and you can end them from there.

Battery life still great. In 2 days I've charged it for 20 minutes or so, and I'm at 70% right now. Not heavy use, but moderate. Good stuff.
 
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