Database Develop

[Q] broke battery sensor

My captivate has been working like a champ for better than two years now, aside from possible phoneco problems and the smershingly infuriating wth speaker problem. I was pretty conservative with the apps I installed for most of that time, but have been less so more recently. I did program a simple app to see if I could, and was just starting to think about trying rooting it with the freedom to renew the contract and get a better fone too, but recently it has been rebooting repeatedly, giving erroneous battery condition info, and having problems connecting to the voice and data nets. So my question is going to be do I need a new handset or is it the battery needing replacement and I can use the money to get a laptop that I need instead.
details:
My first suspicion towards the battery was the erroneous battery condition info, specifically that it was showing a battery level of 0% but able to work. The phone did seem to boot more normally instead of rebooting to airplane mode with a cheaper Chinese replacement battery, but then starting having the same rebooting/radio problems. Before booting the replacement battery, I noticed the original battery oddly bulged where the replacement was not. After booting the replacement battery, the replacement battery bulged oddly in a similar manner. I don't know to handle bulging batteries for heat or not. I have 2 more unbulging replacement batteries from an ebay auction package, but I was not happy with their charge life when I tried using one of them before.
Now the phone seems to work ok on usb power.
Some of the recently non-conservative apps installed recently were AnkiDroid, Gunsmith (didn't work and I uninstalled it), Sudoku something, Mind Games, and mind calculator. Some of the other apps that were champing it up along with the phone no problem 100% were AskPhil, US Army Survival Guide, Brain Genius Deluxe, Google Goggles and Sky, jjReader, a ton of music related apps, and the update to Android2.1. I was planning to update to 2.2 soon, but the update to 2.1 was a little bit of a hassle so I didn't take the time.
So the questions really:
should I be able to get away with uninstalling my recent app installs and installing 2.2 or should I start planning a weekend for a more drastic reset and rooting procedure? I am somewhat versed in unix style systems, but prefer windows, and am not very knowledgeable about kernels of either, will I need more than a weekend to figure out the root and wipe out?
can batteries go bad from a bad app or does the phone maybe have a more serious problem?
Have people been noticing 4G as usefully faster, I use maybe 1Gb of data a month, should I go for a new phone and thaw my 897 later?
What do people think about the programmability and functionality of the newer windows phones? App programming for Android is maybe twice as messy a my experience in .net desktop frameworks, should I figure to get a windows phone?
That is a lot, thanks for reading and any answers or suggestions you have.
riantic

- Your problem is not app related. Try replacing battery with original Samsung one, don't rely on cheap Chinese batteries.
- Check your charger, may be going bad and bugging phone's charging circuit.
- Install CyanogenMod CM10.1 Stable Android 4.2.2 and see if the problem persists.
- IMHO, no future in Windows phone OS, they hold <3% of mobile phones market.
- A new faster phone is always better, but first try to resurrect Captivate, it's still not a bad phone.

somewhat reassuring
Thanks, I guess it would be better that the apps can't fry the battery, although that means my case is more something hardware malfunction. The Chinese replacement battery is working ok but doesn't hold a charge as long as the original.
Do you know if the batteries have a built in voltage sensor or if the phone was possibly doing the error voltage sensing?
I don't necessarily think to trust the AT&T+Samsung/Samsung approved android build more than one in widespread use from the internet, besides the consideration that they would want to keep my business. Is the CyanogenMod you mention more or less observation intrusive than the stock? Is it worth the risk for any specific 4.2.2 features?

- Yes, batteries have their own charging protection circuit with voltage control
- Android 4.2.2 is better in any way - speed, compatibility and features
- No risk with CM ROM, it is very stable and you can always go back to stock in case you don't like CM

I have same problems ever since I don't use stock kernel .. I replace the battery but problem persist even with a brand new battery.. I blame the kernels and almost every 4.2 kernel out there is based on semaphore .. The problem is killing slowly the new batt

gado45 said:
I have same problems ever since I don't use stock kernel .. I replace the battery but problem persist even with a brand new battery.. I blame the kernels and almost every 4.2 kernel out there is based on semaphore .. The problem is killing slowly the new batt
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Millions of Captivate phones use Semaphore based kernel with no battery issues. The problem you guys have is hardware related.

Yup.. I think so.. And Will not get fix by buying new battery , so if you have this kind of problem trash your cappy

gado45 said:
Yup.. I think so.. And Will not get fix by buying new battery , so if you have this kind of problem trash your cappy
Click to expand...
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Or get in touch with Josh at mobiletechvideos.com to see if he can fix it.
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app

almost well blog this sad sad saga
Hey, all, thanks so much so far, very helpful. Here is my situation latests. I have updated the A.OS from the official stock 2.2 to the os 2.3, which basically confirmed that there is something wrong wrong with the handset. It consistently freezes and reboots in under an hour of operation, but seemingly without patterned trigger. So I have to get a new handset, and it will not be a samsung or at&t unless a salesperson at the store can give me a replacement not a captivate.
My next questions are, if I can keep the malfunctioning captivate, is there a somewhat human understandable log of operations somewhere on the phone that might give a clue as to the activity that is loop locking the phone? I seem to recall something about extensive key-wise logging system a while back, am I totally out of the ball park to try something like that? At my current knowledge of mobile phoneology, the other thing I can think to try is a factory reset/wipe, then maybe the firmware loaders available here.
anecdotally, one of the Chinese batteries got 'crunchy' after it got bulgy, definitely not an endorsement for that brand
I am considering a Motorola or an htc next, options and opinions tentively welcome thanks again

Why do I have to struggle with battery life?

Let me ask a question, cause its bothering me; I had an N5 and loved it, the no-crap android os is what I want. Unfortunately I had to go through all kinds of hoops and do all kinds of crap to get it to last me a full day with no charge, I changed kernels and kernel settings, etc. and usually had to throw it on a charger to get through the day and periodically would hose my phone due to under-volting which was hit or miss anyway.
I picked up an invite for a 64G OnePlus and it was insane, its like I got double the battery life and did nothing, no kernel, just the stock CM. I lusted for the N6 and got it last week. Man its big, but I'm loving it, but......wtf is the issue with the battery? I'm reading other stories and I have not been able to really benchmark mine, I got the phone Fri. and have not had a normal day yet, but I'm starting to get a little worried. I had wake up notifications, LED blinking and the same amount of wake ups as I usually have. But I don't think theres anyway I'm getting 5ish sot. Why? Whats so different? Is it me or the device? I can live with 4ish sot, nothing less and I don't want to **** around with kernels again. I'm still in my 14 day return, but so don't want to. I'm rooted, custom recovery, don't want to flash a rom (well maybe CM when available) and did not feel a need to decrypt, but maybe thats the answer. Anyway, any additional thoughts?

I just think that the nexus 6 panel is very power hungry. 5 hrs sot is kind of what I have been getting. It kills me that the note 4 has the same processor and same battery yet gets better battery life.

jm700wx said:
I just think that the nexus 6 panel is very power hungry. 5 hrs sot is kind of what I have been getting. It kills me that the note 4 has the same processor and same battery yet gets better battery life.
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But I figured the Moto like peek feature would be less power then a full wake up like it was doing on the One. I want to keep this phone, I actually did the unthinkable and tried the IP6+, just to give it the benefit of a doubt, I got it on a Fri. morn and brought it back Mon.
Any chance of software fix from Google? I know there is not a clear answer, but I'm wondering what the xda-gods are thinking, hence my questions.

jackpollard said:
I actually did the unthinkable and tried the IP6+, just to give it the benefit of a doubt
....
but I'm wondering what the xda-gods are thinking,
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You have likely offended the xda-Android-dogs by your sacrilegious act described above!!! You need to smash up a brand new IP6+ as a sacrifice to atone for this act! You infidel!
:silly:
On a serious note, OnePlus is running a custom OS, with a custom kernel and all the goodies that we Nexus users have to make changes to get. One+ is already running the optimized OS. I'd say that is why it gets better battery life than stock Lollipop.

What to buy after Note r

So.. in february i sold my iPhone 5s and was confused what to go for.. So I picked N4 Exynos as i wanted a good performance etc. Unfortunatelt, I am bit disappointed. I got a screen burn, the phone isn't butter-smooth and battery life is terrible. Still, we have not any AOSP/CM so.. no way surviving. I am thinking on what to replace my note with..i am looking at G4 and M9, Z3+ when it eventually goes available in my country... what do you guys think?

Okay as i dont have my own m9, g4 i can't say how they will behave in long term use.
But I have played with the both phones for some times,and I feel that m9 has much better performance, the camera is too good,and most importantly it is a phone with everything packed in a decent size of 5 inch.
If you prefer bigger(5.5 inch) and better screen the g4 is a better option..and I felt that the g4 battery gives you more time with screen on,though it has a better resolution.
And with the Sony,I personally hate Sony..:banghead:
My z3 became a paperweight as its faulty battery burnt the motherboard,and I couldn't claim warranty because of unlocking the bootloader!

Herny123 said:
Okay as i dont have my own m9, g4 i can't say how they will behave in long term use.
But I have played with the both phones for some times,and I feel that m9 has much better performance, the camera is too good,and most importantly it is a phone with everything packed in a decent size of 5 inch.
If you prefer bigger(5.5 inch) and better screen the g4 is a better option..and I felt that the g4 battery gives you more time with screen on,though it has a better resolution.
And with the Sony,I personally hate Sony..:banghead:
My z3 became a paperweight as its faulty battery burnt the motherboard,and I couldn't claim warranty because of unlocking the bootloader!
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The problem is, I didn't have any HTC in the past, and - as I read forums - I can't understand the procedures to mod it. S-OFF's, CIDs, the hell is that I have had Xperia neo V back in the times, it was branded phone but somehow it had unlocked bootloader with testpoint method, so I was really lucky . Samsung is the easiest phone to mod, I am pretty scared of HTC level of difficultness in terms of modificating. Another thing is Snapdragon 810 which heats up as I heard. The positive is that I hope developers can get most out of it so there will be many custom roms etc

Monnq said:
The problem is, I didn't have any HTC in the past, and - as I read forums - I can't understand the procedures to mod it. S-OFF's, CIDs, the hell is that I have had Xperia neo V back in the times, it was branded phone but somehow it had unlocked bootloader with testpoint method, so I was really lucky . Samsung is the easiest phone to mod, I am pretty scared of HTC level of difficultness in terms of modificating. Another thing is Snapdragon 810 which heats up as I heard. The positive is that I hope developers can get most out of it so there will be many custom roms etc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want to root, install ROMs etc. then a Nexus 6 would be your best option, and it has great specs

Monnq said:
The problem is, I didn't have any HTC in the past, and - as I read forums - I can't understand the procedures to mod it. S-OFF's, CIDs, the hell is that I have had Xperia neo V back in the times, it was branded phone but somehow it had unlocked bootloader with testpoint method, so I was really lucky . Samsung is the easiest phone to mod, I am pretty scared of HTC level of difficultness in terms of modificating. Another thing is Snapdragon 810 which heats up as I heard. The positive is that I hope developers can get most out of it so there will be many custom roms etc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I also heard that snapdragon 810 heats up fast..but I think this doesn't effect much on the device,like almost all the phones of Sony z series have overheating issues,but when I talked and discussed about it on the Sony mobile forum,they said that all phone CPU's got something inside to control heating issues,so nothing much to worry..
I had a HTC one before z3,the S-OFF,S-ON was a little bit confusing then,because I was at very early stage of phone modding...if you have used and modified phones deeply before,you can easily learn them ..they are not that much hard from unlocking bootloader or flashing ROMs in a Samsung device!
Sent from my GT-I9305

Tom540 said:
If you want to root, install ROMs etc. then a Nexus 6 would be your best option, and it has great specs
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+1 ...nexus devices are the easiest to mod and the purest Google/Android devices there are. I still have an original nexus 7 running like a champ (aside from the screen being cracked thanks to one of my kids stepping on it lol) but software-wise you can't kill that thing!

Monnq said:
So.. in february i sold my iPhone 5s and was confused what to go for.. So I picked N4 Exynos as i wanted a good performance etc. Unfortunatelt, I am bit disappointed. I got a screen burn, the phone isn't butter-smooth and battery life is terrible. Still, we have not any AOSP/CM so.. no way surviving. I am thinking on what to replace my note with..i am looking at G4 and M9, Z3+ when it eventually goes available in my country... what do you guys think?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm have you tried installing a custom rom + kernel (+ init.d tweaks)? Mine is perfectly smooth now, with some slight stutters here and there when loading a bunch of apps. There are a lot of performance enhancements to be found here that your could try before switching. Personally I'm using Wanam's BOC5 rom with googy_anas's kernel, with the L Speed 2.2 tweaks (removed the VM and RAM tweaks) + fpsunlocker (but instead of setting it to -60 I have set it to -1). The s6 browser is also a lot smoother than the one that comes preinstalled on the Note 4 so do install that as well (found here). I would also recommend turning off location history and uninstalling chrome as chrome tends to use a lot more battery than the stock browser (also try uninstalling facebook + messenger and use the web-apps instead).

Toss3 said:
Hmm have you tried installing a custom rom + kernel (+ init.d tweaks)? Mine is perfectly smooth now, with some slight stutters here and there when loading a bunch of apps. There are a lot of performance enhancements to be found here that your could try before switching. Personally I'm using Wanam's BOC5 rom with googy_anas's kernel, with the L Speed 2.2 tweaks (removed the VM and RAM tweaks) + fpsunlocker (but instead of setting it to -60 I have set it to -1). The s6 browser is also a lot smoother than the one that comes preinstalled on the Note 4 so do install that as well (found here). I would also recommend turning off location history and uninstalling chrome as chrome tends to use a lot more battery than the stock browser (also try uninstalling facebook + messenger and use the web-apps instead).
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I can live without smoothness, the thing that hurts me is the battery definetely

Monnq said:
I can live without smoothness, the thing that hurts me is the battery definetely
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Really don't get it as I normally achieve around 7h of screen on time (using the minimum automatic brightness setting). Of course if I use my Gear VR I won't come anywhere close to that. Have you thought about getting an external charger + extra battery? Really convenient as you never need to charge your phone, and switching batteries only takes about 10 seconds. Samsung External Charger

Toss3 said:
Really don't get it as I normally achieve around 7h of screen on time (using the minimum automatic brightness setting). Of course if I use my Gear VR I won't come anywhere close to that. Have you thought about getting an external charger + extra battery? Really convenient as you never need to charge your phone, and switching batteries only takes about 10 seconds. Samsung External Charger
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You can achieve around 7h and when I go to school I can hardly achieve these 4h. The pauses are like 10 min, I usually use LTE, browse internet, read something. Screen is usually set to 50% brightness. The drain is really high. My phone can eat 10% per these 10 minutes.

Monnq said:
You can achieve around 7h and when I go to school I can hardly achieve these 4h. The pauses are like 10 min, I usually use LTE, browse internet, read something. Screen is usually set to 50% brightness. The drain is really high. My phone can eat 10% per these 10 minutes.
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Have you tried resetting the phone? You've most likely got an app that is not playing ball and using a lot of juice. Try resetting your phone, and using it without any extra apps and see if that helps, and then start installing them one by one.

I'm sadisfied with my Note4. But if samsung drop microsd og swapable battery, Ill go for nexus 6.

Toss3 said:
Have you tried resetting the phone? You've most likely got an app that is not playing ball and using a lot of juice. Try resetting your phone, and using it without any extra apps and see if that helps, and then start installing them one by one.
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Click to collapse
I have maximally tweaked my phone now. Installed SweetROM, applied L-Speed init.d modifications, installed googymax kernel. Maybe it's a bit better, can't really tell. One thing that annoys me, whenever I connect to WiFi/LTE, FB Messenger says "Waiting for network". I have to go into settings>force close and re-run to fix this. Any ideas?
ATM i'm considering Nexus 6/LG G4, or wait for Xperia z3+

AT&T S5 mini G800A bettery battery and root alternative

All credit goes to Gatesjunior for his Debloater method.
Summary:
I bought an S4 mini i257 and struggled with major battery drain issues. A couple days ago I snagged a killer deal on an S5 mini G800A on ebay and again, with the ATT bloat battery life is awful. In my quest to find a currently non-existent root and ROM solution for the G800A I found the debloater by GatesJunior. This app allows you to disable or they call it "block" apps from running completely in the Kitkat G800A. He did a great write up and I had no problems getting this to work on my S5 mini ATT.
I created this thread so people could post lists of what apps they have disabled and how much better their experience has become on their G800A devices. Please read all the precautions associated with this method to avoid bricking your device.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/software/debloater-remove-carrier-bloat-t2998294
My battery life has tripled by demoving what I deamed to be untrustworthy and unwanted apps. A quick search for _ATT will yield a healthy amount of the carrier bloat. Take your time and be careful and thurough disabling apps. If you are unsure of its effect it's probably best to leave it alone until you can research it. After I've had a little more time to tweak and tune my device I'll post my personal configuration.
Thanks!

After two months with this device I'm moving on (or back to my old note 2... for now.) It's so painful to use with the stock rom even debloated with the method outlined above. I honestly want to sledge hammer this phone to get out my frustrations rather than sell it to some poor soul. With just my most critical apps installed and no social media garbage battery life is once again dismal at best. It takes forever and then wait even longer to take a picture (5-10 seconds.) With no support in the forums for different roms or bootloader unlocking , only a paid root option that I'm aware of, I'm chocking the purchase of my ATT s5 mini up to a failure. For those looking at this device, like so many others in the forums here recommend.. Your money will be better spent elsewhere then on this ATT model s5 mini.
Can't win em' all. The take away here is to never buy another device you plan to mod without making sure the community is behind it first.

sledwrecker said:
After two months with this device I'm moving on (or back to my old note 2... for now.) It's so painful to use with the stock rom even debloated with the method outlined above. I honestly want to sledge hammer this phone to get out my frustrations rather than sell it to some poor soul. With just my most critical apps installed and no social media garbage battery life is once again dismal at best. It takes forever and then wait even longer to take a picture (5-10 seconds.) With no support in the forums for different roms or bootloader unlocking , only a paid root option that I'm aware of, I'm chocking the purchase of my ATT s5 mini up to a failure. For those looking at this device, like so many others in the forums here recommend.. Your money will be better spent elsewhere then on this ATT model s5 mini.
Can't win em' all. The take away here is to never buy another device you plan to mod without making sure the community is behind it first.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well my G800H battery life is great
i can use it for 6 hours wifi and some gaming after a full charge
it takes 2 hours to charge from 3 to 100
and when locking it it lose one 1% every 15 hours
so i thing your battery itself is the problem

How do I get back data toggle from quick panel

I recently updated to marshmallow and I noticed that data toggle is missing from the quick panel. I was using a custom rom before so I didn't notice it before.
I've tried using sqlite editor but it seems that no one works on marshmallow. Alays telling me error when I try to edit the settings.db file.
I'd very much like any alternative method to do this

the settings.db file isn't there like it's supposed to be. either samsung moved it, or hid it intentionally. hopefullt one of our super devs will find it or workaround. it is nice to have when you need to save some battery. otherwise i don't use it often. i turn it off in highly congested areas when i don't need my phone usually or trying to irk out all the battery life i can when i know it will be awhile before i can charge again. but i have 3 batteries. about 33,000mah between all 3 of them. with efficiency losses that is still well over 20,000mah useable good for a minimum 5 charges at worst.

@rbiter said:
the settings.db file isn't there like it's supposed to be. either samsung moved it, or hid it intentionally. hopefullt one of our super devs will find it or workaround. it is nice to have when you need to save some battery. otherwise i don't use it often. i turn it off in highly congested areas when i don't need my phone usually or trying to irk out all the battery life i can when i know it will be awhile before i can charge again. but i have 3 batteries. about 33,000mah between all 3 of them. with efficiency losses that is still well over 20,000mah useable good for a minimum 5 charges at worst.
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Samsung changed a few different things regarding this MM update, always making things a bit difficult for us... I really don't understand why they give an efffff what we do to our devices... glad they didn't lock our bootloaders like the s7 series.... we will see what they do with the Note 7.. they will loose a lot of sales with people who want to root there devices, my main thing is to remove a few unwanted files, and the MAIN REASON is the darn ad's on all the apps.. that is so annoying, I haven't had add for years... some apps are not being blocked, hmmmm but 1 or 2 are ok I guess.

Yeah. Don't know what the hell those Koreans are thinking over there. I was considering getting a F model note because of the locked bootloaders and exynos being noticeably more battery friendly than snap820. Waiting for announcements. Only dual curved note7? No thanks. Gimmick. And for somebody trying to get into VR business that is lost resolution and color warping when put in a visor.
I unlocked your mum's bootloader.