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Supposedly non-running application drains battery. How can it do that?

S

Susido

Newbie
Anytime I've installed the free version of Torque (an OBD engine diagnostics tool) I end up having to uninstall it as it uses up a huge amount of my battery life. But it's doing it while it apparently isn't even running!

I can exit the program from it's menu and if I view it in Manage Applications it is not listed as a Running application and the Force Stop button is ghosted. From that I have to conclude the program is not running.

Yet Battery Use Details always show an unnamed application using between 20 - 35% of my battery and the Force stop button is ghosted. It is only when I press Application Info on that screen that I see the program identified as "Torque (free)". If this program isn't ever running, then how can it be using up most of my battery?!
 
Install Watchdog Lite. It will tell you if Torque is using CPUs...which means it's running.

Then that would explain it draining your battery.

If you want to monitor what's using battery on your phone, I highly recommend Watchdog Lite. Some folks use Spare Parts or System Panel. Any one of these three should help you determine what apps are the worst drainers of your battery.
 
I use Torque as well, and after reading on the forums on Torque's site, I found out that is just a bug. When you exit the app, its closed for good, not using any battery. Apparently it's a bug in android that makes it "think" the app is still using battery, when its really not.
 
sitlet said:
I use Torque as well, and after reading on the forums on Torque's site, I found out that is just a bug. When you exit the app, its closed for good, not using any battery. Apparently it's a bug in android that makes it "think" the app is still using battery, when its really not.
Click to expand...

Thanks but something associated with Torque is definitely causing my extended battery to last 2 - 3 hours instead of the typical 24 hours. My phone is dead at that point, not just pretending to be low on battery! I have to uninstall Torque in order to get my battery life back to normal. It is a big disincentive for me given that I was about to buy the pay version.
 
wayrad said:
I see the app uses Bluetooth - was BT left on?
Click to expand...

I'm pretty certain that BT is involved in some way because Torque when it's running will display that it is constantly searching for a BT connection with the OBD device (which usually isn't even connected to the car). BUT there's no way for me to prevent this - Bluetooth on my phone is never enabled that I can see (I have a widget that displays BT status so it's easy to tell when it's on).

I suspect that after exiting Torque (yes, exiting using the Exit function in the program's menu) that specific aspect of Torque continues to operate in the background.
 
Very odd! I think if it were me I would use System Panel or another monitoring app to try and nail down the problem, then ask the developer about it.
 
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