My mp3 files get little encores tacked onto them for no apparent reason. Once dowloaded the song appears as it should (I had no reason to suspect any problem) Upon later listens, the song will end and then skip back to a random point during the song and play through to the ending again. At first I thought it was my mp3 player glitching So I didn`t think it was much of a problem. I changed mp3 players and it still happend. So I began checking the song lengths against the stated length of the songs I downloaded thinking the source was the problem. Sure enough many (but not all) of my song lengths would be anywhere between 10 seconds too long and double the song length. So I deleted and re-downloaded a bunch of my songs (After having went through the process of editing the tags so the songs would play in the right order and have added information I like to keep with my songs). While downloading this time I double checked the stated song length against the wikipedia information about the song. They would match to within a second or two at most. Then I would look in the music players listing for how long the song was. They would match to wikipedia as well. After re-editing the tags to how I want them sorted I checked the lengths again. Still matched. A few days later just for good measure I checked a few of my downloads... Too long again. I`d listen to the song and it would have an ending where there should be an ending and an added encore. Back where I started from.
Welcome to XDA
I've had scripted jpeg malware before. They can damage files in the folder they are in but can't damage the folders (or files in those folder) within the main infected folder. The folder acts as containment. If one of those get in a database folder with hundreds or more loose files it be hell to find. The solution is to delete the malware jpeg.
Never heard of that happen with audio files though. It's either a 3rd party app, system corruption or malware doing it. Files should not mutate by themselves. Load some known good mp3's and see what happens.
Clear system cache if you have that option.
Whatever the cause it needs to be tracked down.
Happy witch hunting...
In the future use mp4's, wav or flak for higher resolution...
blackhawk said:
Welcome to XDA
I've had scripted jpeg malware before. They can damage files in the folder they are in but can't damage the folders (or files in those folder) within the main infected folder. The folder acts as containment. If one of those get in a database folder with hundreds or more loose files it be hell to find. The solution is to delete the malware jpeg.
Never heard of that happen with audio files though. It's either a 3rd party app, system corruption or malware doing it. Files should not mutate by themselves. Load some known good mp3's and see what happens.
Clear system cache if you have that option.
Whatever the cause it needs to be tracked down.
Happy witch hunting...
In the future use mp4's, wav or flak for higher resolution...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for trying to help. sure they are all in the music folder but each artist and album has a sub folder all to itself. whatever this is it is equal opportunity.... but not all inclusive. the extra long songs are spread out over lots of different places but not all songs in any given location are affected.
I`ve sent emails to the app devs to see if they have any ideas.
I`ve also scanned for viruses and malware. no hits. also the rest of the phone is running fine except for a little laggy at times on my tag editor app.
well that is unexpected! I played an affected song with Files by Google and it is the proper song length and has no encore. Both my tag editor which can play songs and my mp3 player app show that the song is too long and they play the encore. different developers for both apps.
Take the tag editor out of the equation.
Any other 3rd party apps with permission to access the music folder?
Try using Poweramp as the player. It's rock solid stable.
If you have backup of the library on the PC, etc delete the one on the phone, then replace with the backup copy.
It could still be malware or software/firmware corruption. A factory reset may be needed if you can't find the root cause. Play with it.
What triggers it? Is it a specific file type?
Scan a effected file with online Virustotal.
Looking at running services and cache apps see what's running. If you can clear the system cache do so.
Do some Google searches too, it doesn't have to be that exact device. This is bizarre... until you track it down.
checked file with virus total online. a bunch say undetected. 15 say unable to process file.
only file type is mp3 I can`t figure out the cause. it seems so random.
last time I cleared cache I lost all of my attached lyrics (I also translate the lyrics to spanish so my wife can better understand the song lyrics) that is a lot of work to undo. I am loath to do so. I`ll do so as last resort.
now the only apps that have access are camera, files by google, gallery, mcAffe Security, and messages. I removed permission from 10 or so apps. none of them were suspicious. all well known brand name apps.
tag editor no longer has permission nor my mp3 player (muzio)
going to DL poweramp
going to restore music files from an external hard drive
System cache, not app cache. On Samsung's it's on the boot menu. If this applies to your device too.
.wav files effected?
can`t even find help online to locate how to clear system cache on my phone. it is a oneplus nord n10 5g
no wav files are affected that I am aware of. I don`t know how long they are supposed to be and I haven`t searched for and listened to them to find out.
I searched for cache cleaners in the play store and downloaded the highest rated antivirus app on the list. its by protectstar AI v1.1.4(1030). because of my search parameters I thought it would have a cache cleaner. nope.
I ran a regular scan which found no problems. running a deep scan now. 36% through and no problems.
It is saying it found a surprising number of apps. 363 of them at this point. If I added my last 5 phones apps together I might expect fewer apps.
it seems I have to go into recovery mode (don`t yet know how and it sounds like something I don`t really want to do) in order to clear system cache. It also seems that doing so will clear all the app caches. I already stated why I don`t want to do that.
BryanJam said:
it seems I have to go into recovery mode (don`t yet know how and it sounds like something I don`t really want to do) in order to clear system cache. It also seems that doing so will clear all the app caches. I already stated why I don`t want to do that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The app caches are separate from the system cache at least on Samsung's. Verify that first.
Otherwise it's no big deal.
Some malware has no definition and will not show up on any scans. If it's a file(s) in your music database that's the cause it will need to be deleted. The trigger many times is when the file is opened. This may help you locate it if that's the cause.
no problems with the deep scan aand I just cleared system cache.
will see what happens now.
The backuo I had took me back WAY back. I swear I backed up more recently. I`ll be a long time straightening everything out.
Thanks again for the help! I`will come back and reply if the problem persists after I have caught back up.
If it's a file with malicious metadata or something in it, it will be tough to find.
Contain, isolate, remove. Protect the backup copies!
I like to keep time staggered redundant backups, a minimum of two. If you're backup copy fails?
My music database is over a half dozen backups deep on multiple sdds and hdds.
blackhawk said:
If it's a file with malicious metadata or something in it, it will be tough to find.
Contain, isolate, remove. Protect the backup copies!
I like to keep time staggered redundant backups, a minimum of two. If you're backup copy fails?
My music database is over a half dozen backups deep on multiple sdds and hdds.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know sooner than expected. I was listening while I work and after about 15 songs or so I got an encore from one of the backup songs. I see there are three versions of that song in my back up. one 4 minutes 30 seconds one 3:49 and one 3:39. it`s supposed to be 3:50 according to wikipedia. of course I checked the 3:49 ends normally. but get this the 3:39 one ends at 2:00. go figure.
BryanJam said:
I know sooner than expected. I was listening while I work and after about 15 songs or so I got an encore from one of the backup songs. I see there are three versions of that song in my back up. one 4 minutes 30 seconds one 3:49 and one 3:39. it`s supposed to be 3:50 according to wikipedia. of course I checked the 3:49 ends normally. but get this the 3:39 one ends at 2:00. go figure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So the backup is tainted too?
I am running another deep scan this time with the backup drive attached. 47% through no problems found but I am guessing it is. whe n the scan is complete I will play the tainted song directly from the backup to see if it has the three versions with three different lengths.
I have multiple versions of many songs. The fact that they are mutating is deeply concerning though. I've never seen that.
I intentionally have multiple versions of songs. not for this one. However there are three versions of different lengths on the backup drive the one with 4:36 has an encore and two with 3:49 one of the two ends at 1:56 the other ends normally. nothing detected with the deep scan.
hey black hawk. I am working on restoring my song collection. very few of the backed up songs were effected. doesn`t mean I don`t have to check them all!
I have two questions about power amp that you might be able to answer.
If I listen to half a song and then select a new song to listen to the next time the first song comes up to play it starts where It left off in the middle of the song. Is there a setting I have set up wrong or whats the deal? (figured this one out) it was the store/restore per track progress
also is there a way to reset play counts on the tracks? during this process I sometimes have to listen to a song a couple of times. When I get finished I would like to start with the track counts all back to 0 so that I can shuffle and not hear the same songs over again while neglecting some others.
Mine doesn't behave like that; if I skip forward then back, that song starts from the beginning.
It's in settings, somewhere. Make frequent settings backups especially during set up, just in case. Those backups are important with a complex app like this.
I don't understand your second question. I use playlists or play albums. I don't use suffle or random select as I have over 6000 tracks! I have music database backups that go back over 12 years. Time staggered backups are important if the database is somehow corrupted.
I'm very curious what caused your problem. Never heard of this before, but that doesn't mean it can't happen! Again it reminds me of those malware jpegs.
I vet all downloads before moving them out of the download folder. It may be as simple as playing the track, opening the jpeg or more in depth like scanning with online Virustotal. If there's any doubt, no matter how small, that file gets deleted. Nothing is worth the risk of potentially damaging a database or OS load.
blackhawk said:
Mine doesn't behave like that; if I skip forward then back, that song starts from the beginning.
It's in settings, somewhere. Make frequent settings backups especially during set up, just in case. Those backups are important with a complex app like this.
I don't understand your second question. I use playlists or play albums. I don't use suffle or random select as I have over 6000 tracks! I have music database backups that go back over 12 years. Time staggered backups are important if the database is somehow corrupted.
I'm very curious what caused your problem. Never heard of this before, but that doesn't mean it can't happen! Again it reminds me of those malware jpegs.
I vet all downloads before moving them out of the download folder. It may be as simple as playing the track, opening the jpeg or more in depth like scanning with online Virustotal. If there's any doubt, no matter how small, that file gets deleted. Nothing is worth the risk of potentially damaging a database or OS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
shuffle has a slider with less random and full random. less random takes into account how many times a track has been played and prefers the least played tracks preventing randomly hearing the same track twice in a row, full random just randomizes the tracks and that being the case you might hear the same song twice in a row with the less random option you can play a twenty song playlist on shuffle and not hear the same song twice until all the songs in the playlist have been played at least once. With full random you might hear song 6 8 times before you hear song 1 once.
i heard back from power amp tech support. they tell me to do a full rescan in order to reset the play counts. if I do what they say which is go to settings/ library where there is an option to do a full rescan. I select this option and it warns me that all tag info will be erased from power amp database and library/folders will be rescanned also WARNING! track entries from ejected/unmounted storage/ SD cards will be removed from Library/Folders, buyt will stay in play lists.
i suspect the file manipulation had to do with the auto tagger I paid good money for and used to edit tags by album or artist and add lyrics to individual songs. I believe it was callaed autotagger - music tag editor by sergey churpin. I sent them an email quite a while ago. no response.
Related
So I have been having duplicate song issues. It seemed to happen when I moved around my files. My music player list will show like 2 or 3 albums, but only one will play. The other one or two entire albums will give an error saying 'This file does not exist.' I see that 'Media scanner running' info on the status bar but it never fixes this issue. Anyone else have this problem or a fix?
If it matters this has happened both on internal and external memory.
Thanks.
Nope, never had this problem. Try to remove all music files and see if the player shows anything. If not, then add the ones that were showing duplicates and see if it happens again.
I am having the same issue but i normally use double twist
Delete your cache in Settings, Applications, Manage Applications, Music.
Also, delete the /sdcard/albumthumbs folder.
Reboot and it should rebuild your song list.
I had tried deleting cache before but didn't see it. I didn't realize there were multiple sorting options on this phone, whoops. The 'delete cache' was dark and would not let me click it, but I tried deleting data and the albumthumbs but it still didn't work. I am just going to try erasing it all and re-adding the music and not moving it around again... Thanks for the help though!
Did you find your fix? I had to leave everything out of a folder on the sdcard to stop this annoyance.
I hope this helps
If you are rooted I would recomend purchasing the full version of the app "SD Maid" from the market.
I had an issue from doubletwist that was resulting in duplicate music files.
I'm pretty sure that the reason it happens is; when we are syncing music (possibly alot at once) most programs recognize the 16g internal storage as possibly a indipendent device. This could be because of the potential to swap out your sd card to share music but on second though probably not.
its probably just a random error.
If you are unrooted or otherwise unable to use sd maid (id recomend rooting and flashing a custom rom but if thats not what you want to do then get the free astro file manager from the market and you should see in your home directory a file called music or it could within another file titled media. Regardless where you want it to be is on your external sd card.
you can delete the directory titled music but first check the file titled external media.
You should see all of your music there as well.
I have played with the settings on doubletwist as well as spotify and this is the best solution.
(If you use sd maid then go into duplicates and very very very patiently select all of the boxes it lets you and then just hit the delete duplicates up top)
While granted I am new to Android, I'm amazed at the lazy programming from a VAST majority of apps. I'm assuming Google probably has a recommended location for all this in their development kits, as did Microsoft?? It seems every program is creating a randomly and irritatingly named folder everywhere on my phone memory and sdcard. I take a lot of time keeping my files neat and orderly, and I now have literally 100 extra folders named something arbitrary like /"program name" thumbnails, /"program name" data, etc. I've been a long time windows mobile user, and generally programs put their added folder in a mutually used program files or program data location, etc. Is there any way to fix this, from the user side such as hiding these folders from showing up in explorers. It's impossible to navigate after owning my Atrix for a few months.
Any other solution or ideas would be welcome, as I can't be the only one that is driven crazy by this.
thanks
This also drives me crazy. I don't know of any file explorers that can hide folders(though its a great IDEA) and I feel like moving them may cause unwanted effects in-app.
Some dev input would be nice
sent from my rooted,
and chillin, canadian Motorola Atrix
marko! said:
This also drives me crazy. I don't know of any file explorers that can hide folders(though its a great IDEA) and I feel like moving them may cause unwanted effects in-app.
Some dev input would be nice
sent from my rooted,
and chillin, canadian Motorola Atrix
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've successfully moved just a couple for programs that let you point to a different directory in their settings. But, that's few and far between, and a lot of Apps aren't yet updated to recognize the way the Atrix uses sdcard to name their 'phone memory' and sdcard-ext for 'sdcard'. If I only had the knowledge to do so I would develop a solution. Lacking that, definitely would donate to anyone creating a real working solution for this...or even for pointing me to an existing one.
If any developer here could confirm, does Google recommend a location for all these extra data folders, and it's just ignored. Possibly a limitation of the OS forces developers to create folders directly in root areas for access reasons?
So another issue I have on this topic. Again, I take great care in organizing all my files, especially my music. I have it pain-stakingly divided into folders for easily playing what I want, when I want. I can't seem to get any Android music player to recognize this though. They just want to scan everything, and in the middle of my workouts, my *&$%ing ringtones will start playing in the mix, or a news podcast. I'll have to stop what I'm doing, resist throwing my Atrix through the wall, and manually skip them. I just gave up playing music on it, and take my old Windows Mobile phone with me for this. There has to be a program that allows you to remove folders from being scanned, as I know nobody needs to hear a montage of ringtones for 20 minutes.
Yes, that happened to me, started playing music, and the second I got in the shower I had to listen to train whistles and notification beeps the whole time. WTF?
K...enough venting!
JVogler said:
So another issue I have on this topic. Again, I take great care in organizing all my files, especially my music. I have it pain-stakingly divided into folders for easily playing what I want, when I want. I can't seem to get any Android music player to recognize this though. They just want to scan everything, and in the middle of my workouts, my *&$%ing ringtones will start playing in the mix, or a news podcast. I'll have to stop what I'm doing, resist throwing my Atrix through the wall, and manually skip them. I just gave up playing music on it, and take my old Windows Mobile phone with me for this. There has to be a program that allows you to remove folders from being scanned, as I know nobody needs to hear a montage of ringtones for 20 minutes.
Yes, that happened to me, started playing music, and the second I got in the shower I had to listen to train whistles and notification beeps the whole time. WTF?
K...enough venting!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can create an empty file called .nomedia to exclude this folder from the media scanner. Also, you can use PowerAmp to play music, it allows to select folders and make playlist from them, without use the android media scanner.
Enviado desde mi MB860 usando Tapatalk
lhurtado said:
You can create an empty file called .nomedia to exclude this folder from the media scanner. Also, you can use PowerAmp to play music, it allows to select folders and make playlist from them, without use the android media scanner.
Enviado desde mi MB860 usando Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll give PwerAmp a try, thanks.
Hello All,
I wondered if one of you experts may be able to help me with an issue I'm having with my SIII please? I'm a long time browser of the site but haven't posted much until now.
This issue is coming between me and my sleep (and I mean that literally.)
I can't seem to master the art of getting music onto my S3. I thought it would be as simple as using iSyncr as I had with my S2. Alas, no.
Because of the changes to the mass storage mode (I am running a Mac), I have to download the Android File Transfer thing to connect my phone at all to my Mac.
When I use iSyncr now, it's slightly buggy. I put the phone into MTP mode, it starts copying music across and then after a certain number of tracks, it throws up an MTP issue where it says certain songs can't be copied. I then have to go around the houses and start clearing data from the media storage app in my settings and rebooting the phone. Then, I try again and get so far and the same thing happens again with different songs.
Also, when some songs transfer the albums appear split in the phone (though this is minor annoyance compared to the above).
I have left it on overnight and come back to my computer and it all looks finished, yet of my 6700 songs, only 3400 have transferred.
I've tried going the old fashioned way and spend last night dragging and dropping files onto the memory card using the Android File Transfer mode. I got one message saying a song couldn't be copied, yet when I actually got up and checked, again, only 3400 odd songs had transfered. There were no error messages and we're not talking DRM songs that hadn't gone across.. but some that I had ripped myself. It's all very odd.
Don't mention DoubleTwist - that's even worse.
This is really driving me mad as I am a big music player and I don't want to fork out for and have to carry an iPod too. I just sold my iPhone to use the S3 as I assumed it would be simple like the S2 but this is making me so upset with the phone. It's as though Google have deliberately locked out Mac functionality.
It's an unlocked unit, with a sandisk 64GB card inside. That was formatted by the phone and when I tried using a card reader instead, the computer said it couldn't be recognised.
I'm throwing myself at your knowledgeable feet here and hoping that somebody knows exactly what is happening here and what it is I could do to fix it. My entire weekend has been wasted sitting in front of this computer and I really want to fix it.
Please help.
Thanks in advance.
Can't help with your immediate issue I'm afraid (waiting for my S3 and I don't have a mac... ) but have you contracted the devs of iSyncr to let them know of the issue - at least that way they can start working on an update.
Sent from my CM9 TouchPad
I sure have!
Thanks for contacting me and pointing me to this thread.
First off, I've pre-ordered the international S3 so that I can test this out. We just do not have them in Texas yet.
Secondly, I've been unimpressed with Android's MTP's robustness on other devices. I filed several bug reports for different scenarios that corrupt the MTP database in March of 2011. Zero have been touched by Google. Given this, the first thing we should try is rebuilding the MTP database, which lives inside the "Media Storage" app. I've put these instructions in an easy to follow tutorial.
http://blog.jrtstudio.com/2011/08/how-to-refresh-android-media-database.html
Please let us know if that helps the issue.
Cheers!
Justin
Don't suppose anyvody has any solution for this? Really don't want to take my S3 back but will have to at this rate. I think it's shocking that the S3 is so crippled from a Mac's perspective since the changes to MTP. Android File Transfer app doesn't really fix anything.
I have the same problem. Even using AFT, it wil not see the phone until I put it into PTP mode. THen I can copy data to it. isyncr see the phone in MTP mode but keeps telling me device failed to load.
I'm going to mention
I know I shouldn't mention it but here you go Double twist!
Right I've had some problems and this is what actually worked.
First you have to use itunes. If your music is a mess then a app on the app store called 'dupin' will remove any duplicate songs you have (it worked well for me). if you have lots of dead file links in your library just remove all your library files and then click 'add to library' be careful that itunes does not copy the files you add to the itunes music folder - see preferences.
1. Make a 'new playlist' --> add all your songs to it (press command+a etc). If you have a large music library like me then you can make a 'smart playlist' and limit the size of the playlist, handy eh!!
2. Open doubletwist on your mac and immediately make sure in 'preferences' the 'automatic sync' option is switched off (I had an incident where my whole library syned with 2 of my external hardisks...oops...and the funny thing is that one of the hard disks was where the music stored). Make sure the 'import itunes playlists' option is also selected.
3. In the doubletwist andriod app Select the SD card as library storage and Enable the 'Airsync' function in doubletwist (you will have to pay for the app but in my opinion it's worth it - it also supports ACC files).
4. Enter the pair code into the mac application.
5. Select the option to sync your playlists only (don't try anything fancy!!). You should see the one you made in itunes here.
6. THIS IS THE IMPORTANT BIT: you should by now see the 'airsync' icon at the top of the screen. PULL DOWN THE NOTIFICATION CENTER AND TOUCH THE 'DOUBLETWIST IS SYNCING'. You will see a funky swirly multicoloured wheel LEAVE THE PHONE ALONE UNTILL ALL YOUR MUSIC HAS SYNCED ACCROSS.
Dont lock your phone as this seems to mess it up...
Hope this helps. I understand your pain, I lost a weekend too!
Notes: Podcasts and DRM stuff does not sync.
Notes: If your playlist is not the full size of your music library then if the 'live updating' option is turned on in your smart playlist then when you click sync in doubletwist it will sync different songs each day (I think...)
If none of the above works, you always have a nice shiny 50gb of free dropbox storage as an interim solution
pow001 said:
I know I shouldn't mention it but here you go Double twist!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are already an iSyncr user, as this person is, there is no reason to leave me for doubleTwist. We've got iSyncr WiFi, which we came out with before doubleTwist and is only a .99 cent upgrade. If you've got an issue with it, just email me, and we'll make sure it works on your S3.
-Justin
If its possible, try installing VMware fusion, and you can run windows inside your MAC in a virtual machine, you can try this if everything else fails...
You know where to download these softwares
You can try for free...and find the serial key easily using Google.
http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/overview.html
I purchased the isycr wifi option and it is working fine... I think they have a "lite" version that you can try, but it only syncs one playlist or something, but you can see if it works or not. But that is what I am using now.
Ken
Resolved
We have resolved any issues with iSyncr functioning on the Galaxy S3 in MTP mode. Please contact us at [email protected] if you have any troubles.
Cheers!
EasySeaBreezy said:
We have resolved any issues with iSyncr functioning on the Galaxy S3 in MTP mode. Please contact us at [email protected] if you have any troubles.
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How about with the motorola defy ? Still waiting on that if you can have a look at fixing that one.
I've seen this problem discussed before, but not specifically in the context of using BitTorrent Sync. Since I've started using BitTorrent Sync as a Dropbox replacement to sync about 16GB and 24,000 files, every 1-3 days (sometimes more frequently) my S4 goes into a period of high CPU usage (30-40% capacity, all cores pinned at 1.6GHz) that lasts 2-4 hours, while it consumes battery at about 20% per hour. Using performance analyzers such as Android Tuner, I've ruled out any single app hogging CPU, and the culprit is the Android system itself. I've tried many things to try to stave off or reduce the battery drain if it happens at a bad time, but there seems to be no way to exert any kind of control at this level. I figure that putting governors on the cores won't help because it will reduce my phone's performance while merely extending the time the maintenance requires before it will let my people go, saving no power in the end. Yes, I shut as much stuff down as possible--even going into airplane mode--but once this annoyance begins, it overwhelms any energy conservation efforts. My only viable strategy is then to find an AC outlet and weather the storm there, or plan to finish using my phone within a couple of hours.
I gather from comments people have made in other contexts that if a lot of files change status, then the system needs to do a bunch of stuff, but I'm really not changing that many files, or moving folders around, etc. But it could be that BitTorrent Sync changes a lot if its own system files (while checking in with peers, maintaining its db, and whatever it does), so in response Android then has to do a lot of work maintaining files that the user never directly sees or uses. I do use BitTorrent Sync's auto sleep function, but still.
So I'm wondering if the scenario I'm describing sounds plausible. I'd have to shutdown data sync completely for several days just to do one trial, and it would take several trials to confirm more positively that using BitTorrent Sync is the root of the problem. But I need my data to sync more than I need my battery, so I'm willing to live with short battery times. But it's still a pain in the a$$--and the instances of 2-3 hours battery time are really crippling--so I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions how to analyze or improve this situation because I don't really know enough. Then maybe I'll be able to suggest something to the BitTorrent Sync devs. I don't want to raise the problem in the BitTorrent Sync forums because very few of the active people there are well-versed in Android, the Windows/Linux/OSX crowd being much more numerous. Any comments are welcome: I want to start collecting info on this issue so that it can be discussed more profitably at the BT forums.
Jimmy34742 said:
I've seen this problem discussed before, but not specifically in the context of using BitTorrent Sync. Since I've started using BitTorrent Sync as a Dropbox replacement to sync about 16GB and 24,000 files, every 1-3 days (sometimes more frequently) my S4 goes into a period of high CPU usage (30-40% capacity, all cores pinned at 1.6GHz) that lasts 2-4 hours, while it consumes battery at about 20% per hour. Using performance analyzers such as Android Tuner, I've ruled out any single app hogging CPU, and the culprit is the Android system itself. I've tried many things to try to stave off or reduce the battery drain if it happens at a bad time, but there seems to be no way to exert any kind of control at this level. I figure that putting governors on the cores won't help because it will reduce my phone's performance while merely extending the time the maintenance requires before it will let my people go, saving no power in the end. Yes, I shut as much stuff down as possible--even going into airplane mode--but once this annoyance begins, it overwhelms any energy conservation efforts. My only viable strategy is then to find an AC outlet and weather the storm there, or plan to finish using my phone within a couple of hours.
I gather from comments people have made in other contexts that if a lot of files change status, then the system needs to do a bunch of stuff, but I'm really not changing that many files, or moving folders around, etc. But it could be that BitTorrent Sync changes a lot if its own system files (while checking in with peers, maintaining its db, and whatever it does), so in response Android then has to do a lot of work maintaining files that the user never directly sees or uses. I do use BitTorrent Sync's auto sleep function, but still.
So I'm wondering if the scenario I'm describing sounds plausible. I'd have to shutdown data sync completely for several days just to do one trial, and it would take several trials to confirm more positively that using BitTorrent Sync is the root of the problem. But I need my data to sync more than I need my battery, so I'm willing to live with short battery times. But it's still a pain in the a$$--and the instances of 2-3 hours battery time are really crippling--so I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions how to analyze or improve this situation because I don't really know enough. Then maybe I'll be able to suggest something to the BitTorrent Sync devs. I don't want to raise the problem in the BitTorrent Sync forums because very few of the active people there are well-versed in Android, the Windows/Linux/OSX crowd being much more numerous. Any comments are welcome: I want to start collecting info on this issue so that it can be discussed more profitably at the BT forums.
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I imagine most of the file you are syncing are media files, and here probably lies your problem/solution.
Your drain is more than likely Android Mediaserver which analyzes media files (images, sounds, videos).
You should troubleshoot using BetterBatteryStats to confirm this.
You can always "kill" the Mediaserver, however you'll lose functionality (your phone won't find new media, quite annoying).
The alternative and the better solution in my opinion is to create a .nomedia file in the root directory where all your files are synced so mediaserver skips them completely. This might not be possible if you have a strange hierarchy though.
The vast majority of files are not media files (mostly docx, pdf, and txt), but there are a large number of media files scattered about. The media files don't change much, but if a few changes trigger the media server to perform major operations, then that might explain it.
If I put a ".nomedia" file at the top of a highly nested file hierarchy, will that suppress finding new media throughout the entire tree? That behavior would be fine in my case because the media that I actually use with any frequency is all in its own tree. But if I use the .nomedia trick, will file browsing apps still be able to list the files that are in media format? In that case, I don't see why I'd care if Android's media server ever runs or not. I mean, I do take some photos, but very few. And I always have to use PowerAmp's media scanning function to listen to my mp3's, which are all in their own file hierarchy.
EDIT: I should that I never use any of the stock Android media apps. In that case, do I even need Android's Mediaserver at all?
I put .nomedia files at the top of all my file trees, but I'm still getting, periodically, massive batter drain from the Media Storage process. It will run for hours constantly using more than 25-30% CPU, thus running down my battery entire in a few hours. I don't know how to check for sure, but this seems to indicate that Media Storage does a lot of work involving the trees where the .nomedia files are. I mean, there's no way my phone could be running at a constant 30% without me being able to account for it. Do I need to put .nomedia files in every folder under the same hierarchy? Is Media Server known to sometimes just ignore the .nomedia directive?
Since Android 4.0/1 the media server now references every files on your SD cards. So even those are not actual media files, that might still be the issue.
Not sure BBS or Android Tuner battery stats will reveal anything particular in this situation, but might be worth adding a .nomedia file at the root of your sync folder, at least to confirm.
Since my original post, I've concluded that BitTorrent Sync is the source of Media Storage running so frequently. It's not an error exactly, but because I sync about 16GB in 20,000 files, then each time a file changes on one of the sync peers, then when the phone syncs and changes the file, it causes Media Storage to want to run again. So Media Storage was running 1 or 2 times a day, every day, at the cost of 20-30% battery each time. It looks like bad software design rather than an error. The only thing I could think of was to freeze Media Storage, which turns out not to be as annoying as one might think because apps seems to be able to find the media files, and my file explorer works fine. But I have the annoyance of missing basic things in the Android UI, like ringtones, so my phone never rings for a phone call, only vibrates. I don't care about the other stuff in the OS UI that I'm missing because I have no interest in any kind of theming, but I don't think many people would like freezing their Media Storage process.
So I was excited like many others a few months back when Google Play Music was updated to support external (SD) storage. However I don't know if it is actually being used? I'm hoping someone can tell me more or if they see the same behavior.
If you look at app data for play music, it APPEARS to be saving music - I currently show over 700MB of data for the app. However if I open the app and select "On Device" instead of "All Music", I there is never anything listed (In Listen Now, My Library, etc).
So it appears to me that songs are cached but never used for anything, meaning I'm re-streaming every time I listen to something. It definitely appears that way when I re-listen to playlists.
Anyone else notice this?
Digging around the filesystem a little I see a few interesting things to note:
At the root level I see: "sdcard -> legacy"
Looking here: /sdcard/Android/data/com.google.android.music is only 36 bytes in size.
At root I see: "extSdCard -> sdcard1"
Looking here: /extSdCard/Android/data/com.google.android.music" is 234 MB in size.
Also interesting, the remaining data of the app reported ~700 seems to be in local storage as album artwork, as it's almost all in:
/data/data/com.google.android.music/artwork
I'm on CM11 Nightly if it's relevant.
Thoughts?
Play music caches the music while you listen to it that's why you're seeing all that data. There's an option in music to clear the cache and there's an option for downloading music for when your offline.
Hit thanks if I helped you out. Doing a little bit of reading goes a long way. Sent via tapatalk.
hexitnow said:
Play music caches the music while you listen to it that's why you're seeing all that data. There's an option in music to clear the cache and there's an option for downloading music for when your offline.
Hit thanks if I helped you out. Doing a little bit of reading goes a long way. Sent via tapatalk.
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Right, but after you have listened to a song and it is cached, it should then appear if you switch from "all music" to "on device". That doesn't happen.
As a different test I just pinned a play list. It took 5 minutes to download everything. If I select something else in the app, then come back to that playlist with "on device" selected, even though it still shows as pinned, it says "0 songs on device".
Just to close the loop on this:
I changed GM back to internal storage,
Renamed /extSdCard/Android/data/com.google.android.music to /extSdCard/Android/data/com.google.android.music_orig.
Tried to change GM back to external, and got a FC
At that point the option to switch was greyed out
I rebooted the phone, was able to switch to external and now it works like it's supposed to again.
So something about the external storage location must have been corrupted. I think it may stem from using the Music2SD Xposed module before GM was updated to support external.
Anyway, all fixed!