Hi all-

I have a Pixel 3a running Focal, which i recently updated to OTA-5. I don't know if the issue is related to OTA-5 or coincidence, but in the last couple weeks i have noticed battery lifetime is significantly reduced. I used to go to bed with a full charge, and wake up 7-8 hours later at about 75%. Now however it's dropping to about 45%.

Running top through Terminal, the primary thing running is something called "crtc_commit", which is consistently using between 10-13% of the cpu. When i compare to my old phone (Nexus 5 running Xenial), that command is not running.

I don't have any apps running during this time. And this occurs even on a fresh reboot.

Any idea as to what is going on? Thanks!

-Fizz

OK, here's what happened... I did this in steps. First i installed the RC version of the OS, and tried to receive a mms. Then i installed nuntium_18 and tried again.

System Setting > Updates > Changed to RC > downloaded "version 145" (435.2MB)

The system / installed / restarted itself

Had a text-image sent to me. I received a single notification (this is relevant later). I received the usual error message.

Retrieved log (see below):

2022/11/30 12:59:39 Received ReceiveNotification() method call from 44600
2022/11/30 12:59:39 Push data
00000000  00 06 29 1f 22 61 70 70  6c 69 63 61 74 69 6f 6e  |..)."application|
00000010  2f 76 6e 64 2e 77 61 70  2e 6d 6d 73 2d 6d 65 73  |/vnd.wap.mms-mes|
00000020  73 61 67 65 00 81 84 af  84 8d 01 00 8c 82 98 39  |sage...........9|
00000030  61 30 37 34 61 39 32 61  65 61 35 36 66 31 32 36  |a074a92aea56f126|
00000040  37 35 35 65 61 65 63 2d  31 00 8d 92 89 1a 80 18  |755eaec-1.......|
00000050  ea 2b 31 35 31 39 38 35  39 30 35 34 37 2f 54 59  |.+10000000000/TY|
00000060  50 45 3d 50 4c 4d 4e 00  96 00 8a 80 88 05 81 03  |PE=PLMN.........|
00000070  09 3a 7d 86 81 83 68 74  74 70 3a 2f 2f 6d 6d 73  |.:}...http://mms|
00000080  63 32 2e 67 65 74 2e 62  65 6c 6c 2e 63 61 2f 63  |c2.get.bell.ca/c|
00000090  6c 6f 75 64 6d 6d 73 63  3f 6c 3d 61 65 65 63 34  |loudmmsc?l=aeec4|
000000a0  35 38 35 61 66 38 64 39  34 65 65 39 34 34 34 31  |585af8d94ee94441|
000000b0  31 66 61 2d 31 00 8e 03  04 9a 4f                 |1fa-1.....O|
2022/11/30 12:59:39 Trying to set Active property to true for context on true /ril_0/context2
2022/11/30 12:59:40 Download issues: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.InvalidArgs: Invalid URL: ''
2022/11/30 12:59:40 Trying to set Active property to false for context on false /ril_0/context2
2022/11/30 12:59:56 Received unknown method call on org.ofono.mms.Message MarkRead
2022/11/30 12:59:56 Message /org/ofono/mms/302610917674682/2d50b77dfa31fa85e12d8f74af4d170c is not responded and not expired, not deleting.

where i replaced the phone number with 0000000000.

Next, I attempted to install nuntium 18 via "sudo ubports-qa install PR_nuntium_18" through terminal

I am not sure it installed properly, the last few lines of the process says:

W: No sandbox user '_apt' on the system, can not drop priveleges
Reading pack lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
mount: / is busy
WARNING:ubports-qa:Failed to remount root filesystem read-only.
WARNING:ubports-qa:Please consider rebooting your device.
INFO:ubports-qa:You can remove the repository by running 'sudo ubports-qa remove PR_nuntium_18'

So did it install or not? (Things behaved differently, so something surely is different.)

Going on the assumption that it worked, i rebooted the device.

Received a black screen for a very long time... ~5 minutes. I could tell the backlight was on, but the screen was black. Finally i decided to force restart. I saw the Nexus5 screen, then the magenta UbuntuTouch loading page. Then it went black and seemed to reboot again. Finally i made it to the desktop.

Had a text-image sent to me. I received two notifications on the desktop (was only one notification per message before). (This is what happened earlier after i installed nuntium_18. Something about that install causes multiple notifications, even when not MMS.) And i still get the same error message.

Retrieved the new log file (see below):

2022/11/30 13:19:13 Received ReceiveNotification() method call from 44600
2022/11/30 13:19:13 Push data
00000000  00 06 29 1f 22 61 70 70  6c 69 63 61 74 69 6f 6e  |..)."application|
00000010  2f 76 6e 64 2e 77 61 70  2e 6d 6d 73 2d 6d 65 73  |/vnd.wap.mms-mes|
00000020  73 61 67 65 00 81 84 af  84 8d 01 00 8c 82 98 30  |sage...........0|
00000030  31 31 33 34 39 35 32 61  38 36 66 31 38 65 39 66  |1134952a86f18e9f|
00000040  37 64 34 62 63 61 33 2d  31 00 8d 92 89 1a 80 18  |7d4bca3-1.......|
00000050  ea 2b 31 35 31 39 38 35  39 30 35 34 37 2f 54 59  |.+10000000000/TY|
00000060  50 45 3d 50 4c 4d 4e 00  96 00 8a 80 88 05 81 03  |PE=PLMN.........|
00000070  09 3a 7e 86 81 83 68 74  74 70 3a 2f 2f 6d 6d 73  |.:~...http://mms|
00000080  63 32 2e 67 65 74 2e 62  65 6c 6c 2e 63 61 2f 63  |c2.get.bell.ca/c|
00000090  6c 6f 75 64 6d 6d 73 63  3f 6c 3d 30 31 31 33 34  |loudmmsc?l=01134|
000000a0  39 35 32 61 38 36 66 31  38 65 39 66 37 64 34 62  |952a86f18e9f7d4b|
000000b0  63 61 33 2d 31 00 8e 03  02 3c e5                 |ca3-1....<.|
2022/11/30 13:19:13 Mediator /ril_0 is handling a MNotificationInd with UUID: 0fa9a1efa5d39d0fbeb67cc2a3994d30
2022/11/30 13:19:13 Trying to set Active property to true for context on true /ril_0/context2
2022/11/30 13:19:13 Download issues: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.InvalidArgs: Invalid URL: ''
2022/11/30 13:19:13 Trying to set Active property to false for context on false /ril_0/context2
2022/11/30 13:19:56 Received unknown method call on org.ofono.mms.Message MarkRead
2022/11/30 13:19:56 Message /org/ofono/mms/302610917674682/a5728be444eb482c049065fe7a174b4b is not responded and not expired, not deleting.
2022/11/30 13:19:56 Received unknown method call on org.ofono.mms.Message MarkRead
2022/11/30 13:19:56 Message /org/ofono/mms/302610917674682/19a20cf5fb944b2e7020be1f2f15e70f is not responded and not expired, not deleting.
2022/11/30 13:19:56 Received unknown method call on org.ofono.mms.Message MarkRead
2022/11/30 13:19:56 Message /org/ofono/mms/302610917674682/b6fd22c5584043e4d8ab25ba710e5a70 is not responded and not expired, not deleting.
2022/11/30 13:19:56 Received unknown method call on org.ofono.mms.Message MarkRead
2022/11/30 13:19:56 Message /org/ofono/mms/302610917674682/05f03fa368fd6c583f3773bdecf7f685 is not responded and not expired, not deleting.
2022/11/30 13:19:56 Received unknown method call on org.ofono.mms.Message MarkRead
2022/11/30 13:19:56 Message /org/ofono/mms/302610917674682/2d50b77dfa31fa85e12d8f74af4d170c is not responded and not expired, not deleting.
2022/11/30 13:19:56 Received unknown method call on org.ofono.mms.Message MarkRead
2022/11/30 13:19:56 Message /org/ofono/mms/302610917674682/0fa9a1efa5d39d0fbeb67cc2a3994d30 is not responded and not expired, not deleting.

I hope i have everything you need there, and that i've been clear in exactly what i've done. Let me know if you need anything else.

-Fizz

@domubpkm

Hmmm... that's unfortunate. Though under Xenial (on my Nexus 5), i at least received a notification error. So i knew someone tried to send me something.

The problem now is i don't even get an error. So I won't ever know that a group message was ever attempted. And i can't ask the sender to send individually if i don't know that they've tried to send me something.

So this is a bit of a pickle... Hmmmm.

-Fizz

@Luksus
Regarding #2 and #3, i used to use the Tweak-Tool on my UT Xenial phone. When i moved to Focal, the app wasn't available in the Open Store. But after your comment, i just checked now, i see they released a Focal version only a month ago, so yay!

-Fizz

@kugiigi said in reduced battery life - something with OTA-5?:

@Fizz Perhaps you can try reflashing the full system without wiping your data. You can do this via the Installer or the longer route of switching channel from the settings. Stable OTA are usually delta updates and doesn't fully reflash the whole system.

So, if i switch to the Release Candidate channel, and update to Version 13, i will get a full reflash of the system without losing data? Interesting. That's probably easier than doing the installer, even if it takes longer.

Is there an app that will report what apps / processes are using the most battery power? That crtc_commit still seems suspicious to me (don't see it on my Xenial Nexus 5).

-Fizz

Hi again all-

I have been experimenting over the last couple weeks, and think i have found a couple patterns.

1: After @Mario-CH 's suggestion, i tried leaving the phone off for 20 seconds, then rebooted. Sure enough battery performance was much better, and overnight (7-8 hours) i only lost about 5% from a full charge. However...

2: The phone definitely drains a lot faster when it's using data rather than wifi. But, simply turning off wifi doesn't do it. The phone (not sure if it's the fault of the Pixel 3a, or UT, or my provider Freedom) does not reconnect to data immediately after turning off (or losing) wifi. It says it is connected, but I I always have to open up Mobile Settings and toggle network types before it "kicks in" and starts getting data. Once it does that, then battery usage goes up significantly, about 7% per hour, even when i'm not actively using it, all apps closed, screen off, etc.

3: And then if i re-enable wifi, data usage goes down to normal again.

So, i think my battery is fine, and i think on wifi it behaves well. But is that kind of drainage for data expected? And why does it not smoothly change to data working when wifi is lost or disconnected? (It always requires me to toggle the network type to get it to start working.)

Anyone else experiencing any of this type of behavior on their devices?

-Fizz