Develop Bugs

"Who is this 'Mediaserver' and why is he sucking my battery dry?"

Just solved a really annoying battery drain issue. Figured I'd post the results...
I noticed last week that my phone was going through the battery MUCH faster than normal. A check of Settings/About Phone/battery use told me that the "Mediaserver" was using over 35% of my battery, surpassing the phone standby -- which is saying a LOT given what my T-Mo reception is like.
Now, I'm still learning, so when the description says is does something with running apps, I assume that the issue is an app I recently installed, so I remove apps I recently installed or updated. Nope.
I saw another post about a laggy G2 that seemed to also have battery issues. It recommended using Watchdog Lite to see what was happening. So, off to the Android Market.
After installing Watchdog Lite, I saw that the CPU was 0% idle with 75-95% "nice." Well, no idle = battery suckage, so off to see what tasks are using CPU. The initial check didn't show anything -- until I enabled monitoring "Phone Processes." The alerts for the "mediaserver" "linux task" showed that this process was taking every cpu cycle it could. Off to Google.
Did a search on "android mediaserver loop" and found a couple of bugzillas that essentially said that a corrupt media file (pic, movie or sound) could send mediaserverover the edge. So, I started to move *every* picture off the sd card onto my computer's HD.
Knew I was on to something when mediaserver stopped going crazy once usb storage was turned on. So, I moved all the image and movie files off and turned off usb storage. The CPU spun back to100% busy, but slowed back down to about 9o% or more idle.
Now all I have to do is find the bad file or files, and I can add it to the bugzilla.
EDIT: It seems that this has also made the cooliris gallery wake up and start updating again. So anyone seeing that the gallery isn't updating may need to see if their mediaserver linux task is unusually busy. If so, offload as many media files as possible and see whap happens...
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Tapatalk

Very useful post. Thanks!

I saw this sucking down battery for me as well while playing around with CM7 nightlies, but never thought too much about it. Good find!

I've noticed this issue with mediaserver too but never managed to find what's causing this.
Thanks for the tips

there might be a difference here but media server from G1 (htc dream) was the music stock music player. it might be different here but thats what it was in the G1

lil-devil said:
there might be a difference here but media server from G1 (htc dream) was the music stock music player. it might be different here but thats what it was in the G1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
actually the stock music player is /system/app/music.apk on all vanilla android phones.

I believe that music player depend of mediaserver.
I have installed system panel and noticed a 30% cpu usage when I play some music with Cyanogen 7 RC2.
I will try with another Rom to compare the result.

I found my cause for the problem
I got really frustrated with the Galaxy S2 because of this mediaserver issue...
From wat i have researched, I found that once the 'gallery' is opened and closed,
Phone keeps using the cpu 100%.
Phone's back becomes red hot.
The battery drains rapidly in 2-3 hours.
I plug it on to a charger it doesn't charge up
the mediaserver process comes up in the 'battery usage' with 60% usage
Now, I switch off the phone. Boot it up. Charge the phone to 100%. Its all perfect and no heating up too. After 7 hours of usage, no mediaserver process in 'battery usage'.
I went into the gallery once. Browsed some photos. And Closed it.
Now it all started again. I've tried this 3 times now.
And I have no idea wats wrong with the gallery.

Do what I did and either move all the media files off the sd card or drop ". nomedia" files in strategic locations. (Don't forget to look all over the card because they could be in unexpected places.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Tapatalk

could this mediaserver also be caused by lots of Pandora listening?

Mr. Turbofan said:
could this mediaserver also be caused by lots of Pandora listening?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems to be related to streaming audio also. I'm trying to figure out why since moving to GB my battery is being drained by media server when I never had this issue on Froyo. It only seems to take up the majority of the battery time when I'm listeing to Pandora over Bluetooth during the day.

Very interesting and usefull find, indeed.

Solving the problem lies in the options build.prop
must be changed:
---
media.stagefright.enable-player = true
---
to:
---
media.stagefright.enable-player = false
---
If this option is not in the file, it is necessary to add.

stopservice said:
Solving the problem lies in the options build.prop
must be changed:
---
media.stagefright.enable-player = true
---
to:
---
media.stagefright.enable-player = false
---
If this option is not in the file, it is necessary to add.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't think that is the cause. Mine is already set to false and still have the problem.

Is there a process we can freeze to stop this.

You really *don't* want to kill this process as it is the cataloger for *both* the music player and the picture gallery. Your best bet is to do something like I did to work around the issue.
Sent from my HTC Desire Z using Tapatalk

I started having the same issue (on Galaxy Note) today. Glad I found this thread in any case.
Once thing I noticed is PowerAmp plays sound files from games if you don't give it a media folder to stick to. I can only assume that it's using the media server to find these based on what someone in this thread said.
So it would seem that the .nomedia file method is definitely the best (to stop game sound files being found).
[Edit:] Oddly the behaviour stopped now. Mediaserver is no longer raping my battery. What do you think of the idea of putting .nomedia in every folder and then removing it from only folders you need (images, video and audio folders)?
You can easily do this by running:
Code:
for i in *; do cp file $i; done
from cli in Android (I think). "file" = <path to .nomedia>

No inherent reason you can't do that...
Sent from my HTC Desire Z using Tapatalk

mediaserver was not a notable issue for me untill 2 days before i installed "sprit fm".... then boom ...... mediaserver just gone mad and taking upto 65% of my battery..... now uninstalling "spirit fm" and will see what happens.

Mediaserver and Arel WARS
Hey all! Glad I found this thread. Got a Samsung Galaxy SII Skyrocket I727 from AT&T. From what I researched mediaserver is part of a standard for DLNA. I am a newb on xda so I cannot post links however search on youtube "Android DLNA MediaServer" and you can get a downlow as to what it is meant for.
Anyways mediaserver gets to be 400+ and sometimes even 500+mb according to Watchdog when playing a GAMEVIL game called Arel WARS. This is the first time I have ever had a problem with mediaserver and ONLY happens when I play Arel WARS. I reboot my phone and see mediaserver at 2.7mb. I start Arel WARS and BAM 100+mb already. After playing for about 20 minutes my phone becomes laggy and the game freezes up. I check Watchdog and it shows 400+mb being used by mediaserver. I then kill Arel WARS and mediaserver is still sucking 400+mb. I try several types of app killers but none can even see the process in order to kill it. I try an app called "reboot" that is supposed to simulate a reboot by killing apps and processes but mediaserver is still sucking the life out of my phone. Bottom line the only way I can kill mediaserver is by rebooting the phone and then its back to 2.7mb and it stays that way ONLY until I start playing Arel WARS. I can launch gallery all day long and media player and mediaserver is good.
Just giving my two cents. I emailed Watchdog dev to see if he can help me out since Watchdog seems to be the only app that can actually see mediaserver and also emailed GAMEVIL to see if they might have a memory leak problem somewhere. I will update when I get word from either.
UPDATE:
I recorded my phones screen to show you mediaserver and it sucking the life out of my phone. There is no way to kill it to my knowledge and the more I play Arel Wars the more it consumes precious ram. Copy this link into your browser to download the video. Its about 10 minutes long and about 18mb.
dl.dropbox.com/u/6778642/Android/Mediaserver_ArelWars.mp4.
You should be able to play it in your browser.
BTW I am still waiting on either GAMEVIL or the dev of Watchdog to hit me up with an email so I'll update if and when I get word.

Media Server draining battery? (MIUI)

Not sure what the process "media server" is, but it's draining the hell out of my battery occasionally. I'm taking a wild guess and saying that it may be the new google music beta? But it's only occasionally so I don't wanna uninstall since I just got invited to try the cloud music.
Anyone with MIUI notice runaway media server and found a culprit?

There's something keeping your media scanner running non-stop.
If you use MultiPicture Live Wallpaper, turn off the option to scan for new images. That left mine running constantly, but I did not notice a difference in battery and the power consumption was not very high.
(from... Evo/MIUI/Tapatalk)

Interesting. I can't quite place what the hell is making it go nuts, and it's only occasionally and I can't seem to trigger it on purpose. Perhaps some sort of album artwork scan? I'm not using any live wallpaper either.

Think I've found the solution (that worked for me anyway)
I encountered this on another ROM and tried MIUI-XJ for the first time last night...
It's the "media" (music/video) player trying to download lyrics/cover art for your songs (as I just flashed this ROM last night, I assume this is a one off "task")
Go into the options and turn this off.. I found withins minutes, the phone wasn't HOT anymore, Battery usage dropped from ~60% to about 13% and is still going down...
See how you go...

shayne77 said:
Think I've found the solution (that worked for me anyway)
I encountered this on another ROM and tried MIUI-XJ for the first time last night...
It's the "media" (music/video) player trying to download lyrics/cover art for your songs (as I just flashed this ROM last night, I assume this is a one off "task")
Go into the options and turn this off.. I found withins minutes, the phone wasn't HOT anymore, Battery usage dropped from ~60% to about 13% and is still going down...
See how you go...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm actually having this issue with my phone...which media player are you using? Currently I'm using doubletwist, and the option to download album covers is only available in the upgraded version, and the stock media player with CM7 (latest RC) doesn't have that option it seems. Any other places in the settings that I can find these options? Thanks

Post your battery stats.My Media Scanner keeps running on my two 3gs phones.

My phone was getting hot because my Media Server(Media Scanner) process was eating anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of my cpu and battery.
My numerous attempts to disable it were unsuccessful,i deleted over 80 apk files and it was still running,lol.
I did a a temporary fix by placing .nomedia file at the root of my sdcard,and guess what?Its still fckn running!
I gave up and thought that it must be just on my phone,guess what?I just got brand new GS3 for my girl and same thing is happening on her GS3 and she is running stock and never been rooted.
Im trying to disable this Media Scanner from running because from what i read on the internet there is no permanent fix,its ics issue.
Im asking people to take screenshots of this process like i did and post them.Because im sure that there are others out there that have this problem that are not even aware of it,and it contributes to bad battery life and phone getting hot.
Post you screenshots so i can write Google to fix this annoying problem,thanks.
You can take a screenshot by pressing and holding power button and home button simultaneously.

I ended up getting a hyperion extended battery. helps alot!

Media server is not a scanner
.......it runs things like music. Video etc
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

freecharlesmanson said:
Media server is not a scanner
.......it runs things like music. Video etc
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Media Server is the name of the process for ics Media Scanner.
Not many replies i guess people dont care much about this thing running constantly and eating battery when it should not be running at all.Threads all over internet on this issue but not here,guess im unlucky with my two phones,while my S2 runs normal.

loveshinesthru said:
I ended up getting a hyperion extended battery. helps alot!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flash Trinity Beta 4 kernel.I had about 4-5 hours screentime,now i have 5-6½ hours and zero lag.This is the best thing you can do for your phone.

lviv73 said:
Media Server is the name of the process for ics Media Scanner.
Not many replies i guess people dont care much about this thing running constantly and eating battery when it should not be running at all.Threads all over internet on this issue but not here,guess im unlucky with my two phones,while my S2 runs normal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you say so.. .........but uh I'm pretty sure I've always been able to track the direct correlation of it using cpu time to my music habits. And the CPU time of my music player, etc or Bluetooth audio activity. Not that I run ics any more. ...its old hat
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

freecharlesmanson said:
If you say so.. .........but uh I'm pretty sure I've always been able to track the direct correlation of it using cpu time to my music habits. And the CPU time of my music player, etc or Bluetooth audio activity. Not that I run ics any more. ...its old hat
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i never run anything that plays music or bluetooth and mine is always running. I text, play words with friends, draw something, and use craigslist. thats about it. My husbands phone lasts longer than mine did when I was using the reg battery.

lviv73 said:
My phone was getting hot because my Media Server(Media Scanner) process was eating anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of my cpu and battery.
My numerous attempts to disable it were unsuccessful,i deleted over 80 apk files and it was still running,lol.
I did a a temporary fix by placing .nomedia file at the root of my sdcard,and guess what?Its still fckn running!
I gave up and thought that it must be just on my phone,guess what?I just got brand new GS3 for my girl and same thing is happening on her GS3 and she is running stock and never been rooted.
Im trying to disable this Media Scanner from running because from what i read on the internet there is no permanent fix,its ics issue.
Im asking people to take screenshots of this process like i did and post them.Because im sure that there are others out there that have this problem that are not even aware of it,and it contributes to bad battery life and phone getting hot.
Post you screenshots so i can write Google to fix this annoying problem,thanks.
You can take a screenshot by pressing and holding power button and home button simultaneously.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure but my battery graph with those green icons is blasphemy!
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda premium

I'm having the same issue running AOKP JB with the Jb koonst something or other kernel and i have to go in and kill the service everytime I boot my phone up..... After that it's ways fine... Have you found a solution just yet?
Sent from my rooted, suited, and booted SGSIII livin the dual-core life, know dat

lviv73 said:
Media Server is the name of the process for ics Media Scanner.
Not many replies i guess people dont care much about this thing running constantly and eating battery when it should not be running at all.Threads all over internet on this issue but not here,guess im unlucky with my two phones,while my S2 runs normal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just checked my phone and the 42 minutes of stayawake time listed on mediaserver correlates to the amount of time I listened to podcasts today. My phone is sitting at 74 % battery left after 8h17m on. That's in a crappy coverage area. No issues with mediaserver here. Running Stock ICS, rooted, stock battery, I've done nothing to kill or freeze any apps.
On the other hand, I don't use the stock media players. I use Poweramp for music and BeyondPod for podcasts. They both seem to use Mediascanner for a backend.

i have Allshare, Media Hub, and Maps, constantly running and i don't even use it and GPS, etc.. are all off.
to me, Android manages apps poorly, yet i've read app management is good for apps that are idle.. if it's so good why is battery life so poor. the problem is they make apps launch faster by having them "saved" in background but to me that still use resources.. I rather the apps take a second of two to load (by killing them when not used) rather than constantly chewing battery by having stuff cached/background running. despite the CPU going into "deep sleep" it manages to chew 7-10% battery life overnight just sitting idle. the only solution is to root and hack all the $#*s out.
i hate to compare WebOS with Andriod but on my Webos tablet it can stay on for a week or two with a full charge (with wifi on) it barely uses any battery when idle.

strongsteve said:
Not sure but my battery graph with those green icons is blasphemy!
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Sent from my SPH-L710

tony45x220 said:
I'm having the same issue running AOKP JB with the Jb koonst something or other kernel and i have to go in and kill the service everytime I boot my phone up..... After that it's ways fine... Have you found a solution just yet?
Sent from my rooted, suited, and booted SGSIII livin the dual-core life, know dat
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No,there is only a temporary solution.Just google "ICS Madia Scanner" and you will find that people are having problem with this on just about every phone.
Media Scanner(Media Server service) should only use 2-4% of your battery-thats normal.But if its using 10% or 20% thats not normal and your phone will get hot.
Mrdia Scanner should not be running at all,it doesnt run at all on my Epic 4G and Epic Touch.It should only run fot a minute or two when you reboot the phone or add/delete files.Dont take my word for it just google the issue.
It has something to do with ics not liking certain media files so it keeps scanning them over and over.

freecharlesmanson said:
If you say so.. .........but uh I'm pretty sure I've always been able to track the direct correlation of it using cpu time to my music habits. And the CPU time of my music player, etc or Bluetooth audio activity. Not that I run ics any more. ...its old hat
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think(not sure) that this problem was fixed in JB release.

tft said:
i have Allshare, Media Hub, and Maps, constantly running and i don't even use it and GPS, etc.. are all off.
to me, Android manages apps poorly, yet i've read app management is good for apps that are idle.. if it's so good why is battery life so poor. the problem is they make apps launch faster by having them "saved" in background but to me that still use resources.. I rather the apps take a second of two to load (by killing them when not used) rather than constantly chewing battery by having stuff cached/background running. despite the CPU going into "deep sleep" it manages to chew 7-10% battery life overnight just sitting idle. the only solution is to root and hack all the $#*s out.
i hate to compare WebOS with Andriod but on my Webos tablet it can stay on for a week or two with a full charge (with wifi on) it barely uses any battery when idle.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just use 7zip and remove every app you dont use then flash your custom rom.I have GS2 that is not used as a phone so i deleted even phone and mms apk files and turned it into Galaxy S Media Player.

poit said:
Just checked my phone and the 42 minutes of stayawake time listed on mediaserver correlates to the amount of time I listened to podcasts today. My phone is sitting at 74 % battery left after 8h17m on. That's in a crappy coverage area. No issues with mediaserver here. Running Stock ICS, rooted, stock battery, I've done nothing to kill or freeze any apps.
On the other hand, I don't use the stock media players. I use Poweramp for music and BeyondPod for podcasts. They both seem to use Mediascanner for a backend.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
PowerAmp uses its own media scanner so it should not be running at all.Its a good player but i like Neutron better due to 64bit sound.

[Q] Galaxy Nexus extremely laggy after loading music into storage

Hello all,
I have a question about an issue that has been plaguing my phone for about the last month. I have tried numerous ROMs, kernels and basebands (which shouldn't make a difference but it's worth a try). Basically what is happening is when I have a clean install of a ROM with nothing loaded into storage, my phone is snappy and works perfectly, like butter, no matter the ROM or kernel. As soon as I load music on to my phone, the phone slows down dramatically. I start having "xxx is not responding" messages from every app I load up and the phone slows down to a crawl. I have tried many ROMs and kernels. If I install a new ROM without wiping my internal storage, the phone boots up with the newly loaded ROM slowly and can barely make it through the Android setup without crashing. If I wipe the internal storage and load a new ROM it works perfectly and snappy.
Does anyone know of a reason why this would happen? I am surprised that some music files could slow down the phone so much. Any thoughts are appreciated. I haven't tried going back to stock, but that is my next step. Somehow I think it would still slow down. I got the phone with ICS on it and immediately rooted and loaded JB ROMs on it. It didn't really start at first until I loaded my 10GB music collection on there. Any ideas?
Thanks!

Media storage scans new media and logs it into the appropriate apps.
Even with what I drop on (~4 gigs of music) it can lag for a few hours even.
Without you doing further testing and diagnosis I would guess that is your problem.
Settings>Battery should show media scanner high on the list.
Have you tried to let it settle (build up caches and read the files) for a day?

Yes, I was on a trip last week and let it sit for three days. I figured as much for the media scans, so I let it sit for a day. I don't see media scanner anywhere on my battery list. Just mediaserver, as I try to listen to the music that is on the phone as much as I can without locking anything up. I have:
Screen
Phone Idle
Mediaserver
Cell standby
Winamp
FBTouch
Android OS
Chrome
Android System
Voice Calls

jlink38 said:
Yes, I was on a trip last week and let it sit for three days. I figured as much for the media scans, so I let it sit for a day. I don't see media scanner anywhere on my battery list. Just mediaserver, as I try to listen to the music that is on the phone as much as I can without locking anything up. I have:
Screen
Phone Idle
Mediaserver
Cell standby
Winamp
FBTouch
Android OS
Chrome
Android System
Voice Calls
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe you need to defragment (I kid, I kid)

danielsaenz said:
Maybe you need to defragment (I kid, I kid)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sometimes I wish I could.

Figured it out. I re encoded my music to VBR and copied it to my phone and all is well!
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Hi, sorry for my eng., I have the same problem as you. But I think it's not only music. Tested read\write speed on clean stock, it's awesome. Then filled storage with music (6 gigs) and movies (6 gigs) - write speed decreased from 12 MB\s to 0,7 MB/s!!! WTF?! Then I deleted all music and movies (+12 Gb free) and ran tests again - read\write speed still low! Forever Gone (Nexus 7 memory lag's solution) doesn't helped.
Any ideas?

Well, reported to google about this problem. Others should look for an Issue 39154 on google code threads and join discussion
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

[Q] Media service contiuously running

I have a 7100 with a 32GB card.. with around 1500 songs. My phone is always warm to touch and the battery drains like anything.. from 100% to zero in 6 hours or so. I've check the stats and it seems like the process Media runs ALL the time.. keeping the phone from going into deep sleep, and consuming CPU cycles and battery.
I've tried removing the SD card.. formatting it.. copying everything back, and putting it back in. No difference.
I tried stopping all Media related services, clearing the cache and data, and restarting the phone. No difference.
My phone is virtually unusable now. If I force stop the media service, then any new songs I add don't show up in my media library. When that happens, even running a SD card scanner doesn't do anything. It just runs forever and I have to kill it.
Any ideas how to solve this problem?
Running 4.1.2 DDDLK6, Build XXDMB2

J_Kirk said:
I have a 7100 with a 32GB card.. with around 1500 songs. My phone is always warm to touch and the battery drains like anything.. from 100% to zero in 6 hours or so. I've check the stats and it seems like the process Media runs ALL the time.. keeping the phone from going into deep sleep, and consuming CPU cycles and battery.
I've tried removing the SD card.. formatting it.. copying everything back, and putting it back in. No difference.
I tried stopping all Media related services, clearing the cache and data, and restarting the phone. No difference.
My phone is virtually unusable now. If I force stop the media service, then any new songs I add don't show up in my media library. When that happens, even running a SD card scanner doesn't do anything. It just runs forever and I have to kill it.
Any ideas how to solve this problem?
Running 4.1.2 DDDLK6, Build XXDMB2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Always been a problem with Samsung devices:
1. Install a startup manager from Play and go into system apps and disable Mediastorage.
2. Install Rescan Media Root. Open and enable it, close it and you`re done.
Reboot and that should fix you problem.

Thanks a lot.. just a little clarification. In Rescan Media Root, there are two buttons.. Re-Enable Media Scanner, and Disable Media Scanner. Which one do I click?

Disable media scanner
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium

Ok thanks a lot.. will do and let you know how it goes. Hopefully that would solve the problem!!

The underlying problem is with one of your media files being corrupt... it can be hard to pinpoint though there is software that can assist (faster to find something for your pc) in locating corrupt media. Using a bandaid (disabling the scanner) can have negative implications...

Yes I've figured that there is a problem with a file.. but how to pinpoint it? I don't recall when it started happening.. disabling the scanner is not ideal. Now if I add more media, I'd have to manually scan the card, right?

J_Kirk said:
Yes I've figured that there is a problem with a file.. but how to pinpoint it? I don't recall when it started happening.. disabling the scanner is not ideal. Now if I add more media, I'd have to manually scan the card, right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No rescan Media Root should do that automaticaly.

You can put a ".nomedia" file in the directory you don't want to be scanned. It's works very well to prevent media scanning. Disable media storage in the app manager is not a good idea, you lose all multimedia, can't play video and music or view pictures with stock apps, can't change ringtone and notification.

You have a corrupted file on the internal or external SD card.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium