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hiren_chauhan

Hi,

I've been facing this issue of battery drain due to mediaserver. As soon as I start my walkman app, media server usage in power management increases. It's more than Screen usage. I've tried formatting my SD card, deleted .nomedia file from internal / sd card, did restore factory thrice, installed apps again, cleared data from setting > app > all for Media Storage, Walkman etc .. problem still persists.. My battery hardly stays for 6-7 hours. Any solution? Thanks!

hiren_chauhan

Thank you, Rickard. I will keep you posted. Cheers!

blackbox

@hiren.chauhan wrote:
Finally, I could repair my phone's software. Now, my phone is totally empty (No SIM card, No SD card. No data. Nothing on internal storage, No third party apps), still when I see, the mediastorage value is increasing.
See the below screenshot:
The value now is 11%, but soon it will reach the top most position.

Any comments on this?
Thanks!

Ah, the old MediaServer problem. Doing a reinstall is one sure way to deal with it, but it will almost certainly return.

Seems to mostly be corrupt media files that cause it. MediaServer kicks in whenever a media file is accessed (so can be triggered by almost any app) and seems to gets stuck in a loop if it hits a corrupt file, then keeps going until your battery dies.

Last time it happened I found removing corrupt MP3 files cured it (until the next time, at least). I moved my 25GB worth of MP3s off the SD card onto my PC and scanned for corrupt files. I found about 30, removed them, then moved the clean MP3s back onto the SD card. The MediaServer app then went up to about 10% of battery usage while it re-built the index, then went back to where it should be.

I'm going to get into the habit of scanning MP3s before I put them on my phone. It's a slight hassle, but a lot less than having to do the above or a full repair install with SUS every couple of weeks.

This is a very well known issue in Android - there are even apps you can get to kill MediaServer (which I don't recommend - it's an essential process), so it's a shame they haven't done something about it. It would be great to know if it's still an issue on 4.3/4.4 (I'm still on 4.1). It's definitely been the most troublesome thing about the phone for me.

Lastly, in the short term - if you're out and about and MediaServer starts eating your battery, just do a reboot. That'll kill the process for a while - long enough to stop you running out of juice.

hiren_chauhan

Thank you so much blackbox for your valuable feedback. But I guess as of now, there is nothing in my mobile, no songs, no photos.. as per the comment by Rickard, I'll let it run for the first time, as I've just repaired my phone. I too have 16GB of SD storage. I'll scan my mp3's and then only put the card into phone.

Let's see if I manage to get hold of this "mediaserver" bug this time.

Thanks again! I'll keep you posted.

blackbox

@hiren.chauhan wrote:
Thank you so much @blackbox for your valuable feedback. But I guess as of now, there is nothing in my mobile, no songs, no photos.. as per the comment by Rickard, I'll let it run for the first time, as I've just repaired my phone. I too have 16GB of SD storage. I'll scan my mp3's and then only put the card into phone.
Let's see if I manage to get hold of this "mediaserver" bug this time.
Thanks again! I'll keep you posted.

No problem . If you google "mediaserver battery drain" you'll see plenty on this.

hiren_chauhan

Is there any particular software / application you use to find corrupt mp3's, photos etc..?

Thanks!

blackbox

@hiren.chauhan wrote:
Is there any particular software / application you use to find corrupt mp3's, photos etc..?
Thanks!

I use this for MP3s:

http://download.cnet.com/MP3-Checker/3000-2141_4-10543407.html

There aren't that many mp3 analysers available for Windows, but this one does an OK job. I had to run it as administrator (which you should do at your own risk) to get it to move corrupt files to a quarantine directory, otherwise it just deleted them. It's fairly quick too - I have a really big MP3 library and it got through 16000 files in a few hours. It found something like 200 bad files in that lot.

I've not tried scanning photos or video, so not sure what's best for those. Anyone else got a recommendation?

hiren_chauhan

Thanks! I will download and check mine too.

Regarding photos, let's see if someone can help!

Cheers mate.

An update: I found around 21 bad mp3's on my SD card. I've deleted all of them. I'll see what difference they made to mediaserver drain. Regarding finding corrupted images, I couldn't find any software online.

I'll also resintall all my previous applications one by one, and see if any one of them is affecting battery badly.

Latest update:

Unfortunately, "mediaserver" drain is back. I thought removing corrupted files would solve the issue, but no, it did not. It starts and its "keep awake" value keeps on incrementing till "walkman", "MX Player", "Camera" is ON. I have not even installed any applications on my phone yet, except Twitter.

I wonder, my last phone was Xperia Go, it has same set of applications (more than this in fact, along with those corrupted files which I never scanned), but still there was nothing as such "mediaserver" drain. I am stuck now. I am confused about which applications to stop. Although, I've already disabled unnecessary apps. Also, I am not clearing data for "Media Storage" under Settings > Apps > All, because doing that, and booting mobile, makes mediaserver eat a big bunch of battery.

Guys, any other trick, or solutions worked for you? Or I just simply get used to battter life of my phone? (I considered Xperia SP just because of its 2370ma battery, but it is a huge disappointment now)

Screenshots for your reference:

See, after 4 hours of use, almost 40% battery drain. I was listening to songs for almost an hour. Walkman is anyway eating battery, but "mediaserver" keeps on running till walkman runs.

I think if I listen to music continuosly, "mediaserver" will beat "Screen" and reach top.