When wifi is turned on and the phone is otherwise idle, there is a constant but small stream of data up and down. I have NetCounter installed which monitors wifi as well as cell data. This morning, when I turned the phone on, with the wifi counter at zero, I enabled wifi and then just let it sit on the desk for 4 hours. At the end of four hours, there was a total of 3.83 MB of wifi data usage, 3.52 MB received and 320.7 KB sent. Also having wifi on when the phone is idle eats up the battery. Starting at 100%, at the end of the 4 hours the battery was down to 64%. With wifi off, after sitting idle for 4 hours it would still be above 90%.
By the way, the phone is now rooted with sre 1.3.1c and with lag fix installed, but the wifi has behaved the same from when the phone was new, and I ran it for about a month stock. I'm just curious if this is normal operation for wifi. I have read in other threads that some leave wifi on all day without much battery usage.
When I first got the phone, I thought that it might be some application running in the background that was causing the data usage, so I installed ATK and experimented with killing everything, but the data usage was constant. (I can also see the data usage on my router because the wifi light flashes continually when the phone's wifi in turned on, and is solid unflashing when the phone's wifi is turned off, assuming the laptop is not connected.) I was unable to stop the data usage by killing off applications.
Any ideas? Thanks.
Did you agree to send anonymous usage data to Google when you configured the phone?
Interesting thought. Normally I never send anyone any data, unless I'm forced to. Would the tech at the store have set this up? Where do I look to check?
Edit: if you mean "use wireless networks" in settings | location and security, it's usually on, but it doesn't make any difference to the wifi data usage if it is turned off.
Gmail does push email, so does exchange. Are either installed? Any widgets? Facebook accounts?
There are many core apps that use data, tell us more about your config and we can help pinpoint it.
I have the google and youtube widgets, the Android power control widget, and the juice defender and juice plotter widgets. The last three were installed after I started trying to find the solution to the wifi issue.
I have Gmail installed. However, Auto-sync is always unchecked, and even though I leave bacrkground data checked most of the time, if I uncheck it, even with a reboot, the wifi data still goes on.
Installed applications: AndExplorer, Any Cut, AutoKiller Memory Optimizer, Google voice, Grocery IQ, JuiceDefender, JuicePlotter, Listen, Maps, Market, My Tracks, NetCounter, OruxMaps, Quadrant Standard, Rom Manager, SL4A, Startup Auditor Free, Titanium Backup, XDA. All the root apps were installed recently.
Installed sre 1.3.1c recently, which removed samsung and at&t bolatware.
That's all I can think of for now. What else would be helpful to know about my configuration?
I don't see it on your list of installed apps but when I installed (ad supported) MailDroid, I noticed I got 4MB of data downloaded in 4 hours while the phone was sitting idle, charging (not even on WiFi. It was on my 3G!). When I Force Stop MailDroid, the data activity dropped to near zero.
Could it be some ad supported apps that run in the background? Data leaks?
I have the stock mail application, which retrieves mail from two accounts.
Grocery iQ has coupons. I use the program for inventory, so I never even look at the coupons page. Anyway, that app does not run in the background. You can't find any process associated with it unless you start the app from it's icon.
Startup Auditor has ads in it. I tried disabling it (with Startup Auditor) but that did not make any difference in the data, even after reboot. Anyway, that program was added since I've been working on this.
I don't think any of the other apps have ads in them.
One other thing I'll mention. There have been two occasions when the data stream stopped completely while wifi was still turned on, each time for a period of about 20 to 30 minutes. I could see this from the wifi activity indicator light on my router. This happened about two weeks apart. The more recent one was yesterday afternoon right after I made the OP of this thread. In both cases, I could not correlate what caused the data to stop, nor what caused it to start up again. But at least it seems to indicate that there is something causing the data to flow, and that it can be inactive while wifi is on.
are you sure its not another device that is using the wifi and not ur captivate
labbu63 said:
are you sure its not another device that is using the wifi and not ur captivate
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Yep. There's only the laptop and the phone. The laptop is on the ethernet connection, hard wired. The laptop has an on off switch for the wifi. It's off. Also, the indicator light goes solid when I turn off wifi on the phone, and starts up again when I enable wifi again.
Tonight I decided to put DG's Cognition on the phone. After I Oden3 one-clicked to stock UCJF6, I checked the wifi, and sure enough, still getting the constant data stream. When I bought the phone, I never really became aware of the problem until after I had loaded a number of apps. But here it is in the "just out of the box" state, and it already driving my router crazy.
So now I don't know what to think. Is this normal for all Captivate phones? Is this a hardware problem on this phone? Something else? Btw, the flash to cognition went smoothly, and the phone is running well, but the data stream is still there when wifi is on.
I wouldn't get all in a frenzy just because your router is blinking. Your router blinking doesn't mean your phone is downloading something. Install an app that monitors your wifi data usage. If it reports unusually high numbers then come back here.
gtg465x said:
I wouldn't get all in a frenzy just because your router is blinking. Your router blinking doesn't mean your phone is downloading something. Install an app that monitors your wifi data usage. If it reports unusually high numbers then come back here.
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Please read the OP and the whole thread. It isn't that long. True, while I was in the midst of flashing Cognition, I didn't take time to install NetCounter on the stock rom and take time to check the actual data flow. But the fact that there is actual data flowing when the indicator light is flashing is established.
I've uninstalled MailDroid because of the annoying ads (and because I thought it was doing unnecessary downloads at night). I woke up this morning and NetCounter shows 13MB of data downloaded for Today (from midnight to 6am). I suspect it's the 4 windows (tabs) I have opened in my Browser. Two of them were full (desktop) websites that have banner ads in them. Hmm...
Less than 1MB of data per hour is not a big deal. I'm sure it's a combination of apps that pull or sync data from the internet. Or it could just be an app you have installed that's downloading ads like RexEscape said.
Also, do you have the wifi sleep policy set to never? It should be set to never for best battery life.
RexEscape said:
I've uninstalled MailDroid because of the annoying ads (and because I thought it was doing unnecessary downloads at night). I woke up this morning and NetCounter shows 13MB of data downloaded for Today (from midnight to 6am). I suspect it's the 4 windows (tabs) I have opened in my Browser. Two of them were full (desktop) websites that have banner ads in them. Hmm...
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What do you show for data usage when your phone is idle but wifi is turned on, meaning nothing you know of would be using data? Would you mind doing a brief test like that? Thanks
gtg465x said:
Less than 1MB of data per hour is not a big deal. I'm sure it's a combination of apps that pull or sync data from the internet. Or it could just be an app you have installed that's downloading ads like RexEscape said.
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It appears to be drawing data without any apps installed. I assume that after flashing odin3 one-click to the stock rom, the phone is configured almost exactly like it would have been out of the box.
Also, do you have the wifi sleep policy set to never? It should be set to never for best battery life.
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Just checked it. It is set on Never now. I'm pretty sure it has been set on never since I first started trying to optomize battery life, and discovered the wifi issue.
gtg465x said:
Also, do you have the wifi sleep policy set to never? It should be set to never for best battery life.
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Where in the settings do I check this option??
dm
dwmoss said:
Where in the settings do I check this option??
dm
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Settings | Wireless and netowrk | Wi-Fi settings. Then press the menu button and select advanced.
creepyncrawly said:
Settings | Wireless and netowrk | Wi-Fi settings. Then press the menu button and select advanced.
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Click to collapse
Thank you very much.
I hate to bring this one back from the dead but I am having the same issue. When watching network usage in SystemPanel, I am getting 0.6-0.2kbps up and down constantly. Then when I switch Wifi off, it sits on zero. That seems to indicate something directly related to the relationship between the phone and wireless routers and not a specific app or general setting. Any ideas? Thanks guys.
I also just noticed that under Wifi settings it will pop up saying "Scanning" every 2-3 seconds. It does it whether network notification is checked or not. Not sure if that is normal behavior or not.
I'm currently using the latest version of unleashed.
When I switch over to wifi 4g doesn't go away, and its sending and receiving data constantly. Is there a way to disable all mobile data widgetsroid doesn't work, it comes back up 7secs after I disable it.
JackTheRipper13 said:
I'm currently using the latest version of unleashed.
When I switch over to wifi 4g doesn't go away, and its sending and receiving data constantly. Is there a way to disable all mobile data widgetsroid doesn't work, it comes back up 7secs after I disable it.
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It's not really doing anything. I've used my verizon mobile data tracking widget to confirm. It is using your wifi and not 4g.
Data enabler widget works great. one click and it shuts off 3 and 4g
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using XDA App
if you use juice defender it has a widget called toggle mobile data, plus juice defender damn near doubles your battery life without any forbidden task killers or anything like that.....
Enzopreme said:
if you use juice defender it has a widget called toggle mobile data, plus juice defender damn near doubles your battery life without any forbidden task killers or anything like that.....
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I can back this statement up. I got a full day and a half, moderate usage on my phone with the ultimate edition. It helps that I have my E-Mail set to sync only once an hour. but it turns off 3G/4G when your screen is off, and can re-enable it once your screen is back on, and same with wi-fi and a few other things. It also re-enables it once every 15, 30, 60, or 120 minutes even with screen off. I just discovered it and it just blows my mind. Im also coming from a Thunderbolt lol, but never in a 4G area. Oh, and no extended battery on my bionic either.
Hey everyone.
The battery life on my Ace without using data is brilliant. Even using wifi and playing games etc it can last around 2 days.
When data is turned on I can see the battery % counting down when I use Facebook or use the web browser.
This has happened on a number of ROMs I've tried, even stock based ROMs. I tend to use either on demand or smartass cpu settings.
I'm currently using Democracy 3.2 and it's having the same problems.
Has anyone else experienced this or found a way to fix it?
Sent from my GT-S5830 using xda app-developers app
Some apps that have internet permissions connect every now and then. With data on, battery will drain:
-when transferring data
-when switching edge, 3g and h
-when establishing data connection if it is ever lost.
If you got lots of apps transferring data, it can be solved by installing a firewall on a rooted phone (like droidwall).
The other thing is bad network coverage, which cannot be solved (switching too often or reestablishing data connection frecuently).
Edit: either way, data is a major battery hog when actively browsing (facebook, talpatalk, browser)
If using wifi isn't an option, some users report better battery life using 2g only
I don't think 2G would be an option for me... I've tried it before and the load speeds are far too slow for a lot of my apps to be usable.
I have noticed that the battery drains a lot when trying to establish H/2G/3G connection. I usually just turn data on only when I need it. Do you think it would be better for the battery to leave data on all day so it doesn't have to reconnect when I ask it to 10 times a day?
It seems to be the Facebook app that drains it most. Email / XDA / Dolphin doesn't impact battery quite as much.
Sent from my GT-S5830 using xda app-developers app
Constantly switching data on/off drains more battery than leaving it on all day cuz it will only use battery when transferring data, and if you're on wifi, wifi has preference.
The switching and establishing of data connection drains more battery than the screen at max brightness.
dxppxd said:
The switching and establishing of data connection drains more battery than the screen at max brightness.
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Wow... That sucks... Is that just for Ace's? My girlfriends HTC Sensation doesn't seem to be affected by switching data on/off a few dozen times a day.
I'll give it a try today. Data is on all day and I'll see if I can squeeze a bit more juice out of it. I've also installed droidwall so that everything gets wifi access but only the stuff I use gets data access.
Thanks for your suggestions, I'll let you know how it goes :victory:
I've given it a try.
Previously I'd turn data on/off when I needed it and it would use 5-10% battery establishing connection and transferring data.
With data on all day I lost 5% in the morning establishing connection but after the transferring data throughout the day impacted the battery far less. I think it really helped that I had droidwall so there wasn't anything downloading in the background that I didn't want to. I got home at night and still had around 70% battery left.
Thanks for your help and advice guys :victory:
I'm shocked, without 3G I still only manage 1 day not 2days count yourself lucky!
I have same problem
Wifi uses less battery then data
Sent from my GT-S5830 using xda premium
nevis said:
I'm shocked, without 3G I still only manage 1 day not 2days count yourself lucky!
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Turning data on/off a few times again I'd get about a day if I was lucky.
My phone has been on for a little over 24 hours with data on and it's on 80% right now... I've only really used 3G a couple of times but I'm not a particularly heavy user. It spends a lot of it's time locked and a asleep.
hi
Each time I use my phone after it was locked, the data traffic is disabled.
which Option or app can be the root cause?
thanks
battery defender
just to complete: it seems that it is related to the App Battery defender... but quite annoying because I expect to have data connections once I wake up the phone from idle...
It's all in yr setting of the app. U can set to few seconds till few minutes for data to restore after unlocked. That how the app work to save battery.
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