[Q] Is the 'suspend process' issue truly a mystery?

I have searched through XDA and read all the threads regarding the 'suspend process' issue. The specific issue is outlined in Issue # 11126 on the Google Code/Android project home...

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=11126

I am trying to get to the bottom of this, as best as possible. For all intents and purposes, this really appears to be a mystery. Ultimately, it appears as though there is (currently) absolutely no specific reason a to why 'suspend' runs wild until the device is rebooted.

My question is (I know we can all only speculate):

Is there any chance that this could be Google account-specific?

The reason I ask is, I've been doing some "testing," just to try and make sense of this for myself. Here is what I've done/come across thus far...

- My fiancee's first MT4G was a black one manufactured in Taiwan. It had the inferior LCD-SH-C2 screen. Her battery was draining VERY quickly - i.e. before noon, without using the phone for much else other than texting.

- I enabled USB Debugging for her, to "rule out" the init process issue.

- Even though she only had Handcent, Facebook and Angry Birds installed, I removed all of them, leaving only Watchdog.

- I factory reset her phone, twice.

- For all of the above, the device was not rooted. I have since rooted her phone via the steps in this thread.

I'm in the process of creating a new Gmail account for her, exporting ONLY her contacts and then using that account for her new MT4G (Plum) that's scheduled to arrive today. I'm actually thinking of NOT using her new Gmail account at first though, so I can use her original Google account on this new, clean device and see if the suspend issue persists.

I might just be wasting my time, but I enjoy doing this and I don't think it's a complete waste to try and find SOME constant here. Am I nuts for thinking it's tied to the Google account? The Google account seems to be a black box of sorts. There is more than just contacts, apps and settings, yet there is no "window" into everything else that comes down - e.g. I can't log in to Gmail and "configure" it to not restore her wallpaper or WiFi settings. So that's why I say it's a black box of sorts, since it's doing more in the background than we have control over.

Nothing is truly random, at least not in the context of Android and the hardware affected. There has to be some reason why users of various devices, either do or do not experience this issue. Whether it's a specific action or the something that differs between one person's action vs. another person's, there has to be SOMETHING that's triggering this on her device, yet never triggers it on mine. I guess I'm just trying to flush everything out and hope that discussing it will help rule out/rule specific variables.

mwelliott said:

Let me know what you find. This is driving me crazy! I charge my phone at night, so when I head to work it's at 100%. By the time I'm heading home (4-430pm)... the phone is around 15% battery.

Watchdog tells me suspend ranges from 5%-49% at any given time. I've never had suspend drop below 5% except on fresh reboot. I've noticed, though, after a reboot that the suspend process will slowly work its way back up to using lots of CPU cycles (it starts at, say, .2%, then 10 minutes later its 3%... 30 minutes later its 5%... an hour later its 9%). Battery just gets hotter and hotter due to this.

I'll be checking back to see what you find! Thanks!

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According to XDA and Issue #11126, you're not alone.

What's really bugging me is that neither my first MT4G, nor its 1st replacement or its 2nd replacement, have ever done this. My fiancee's first phone did this. She is now using my 2nd replacement while she waits for hers to arrive (today). So a device that never exhibited this issue, over the course of at least a week of normal-for-me use, started exhibiting this issue for my fiancee maybe a day or so after using the phone.

I thought I had "solved" it when I didn't see it crop up the first day she used my replacement phone. She was quick to let me know I was incorrect.

So I've got serious pressure here - all of my MT4G's haven't exhibited the out of control 'suspend process' issue while I was using the devices, but with her, it does. <queue the jokes>

We own our own business, so we're in the same room all day long while we use our phones. I was the first to tell her, "it's something you're doing." I'm only repeating myself by saying that I blamed it on an app she installed or something she "did" to cause it. After factory resetting, what...2, 3 times...I'm starting to forget; after checking the apps that are installed (and removing all of them); after verifying every setting from USB Debugging, screen brightness, account sync, etc. I seem to at least be able to say, "every single setting, shortcut, widget, app or usage pattern, does not produce the issue on any device I have used with my Google account, whereas it does with my fiancee."

That's the most difficult part to get absolute - the usage pattern. She's doing such basic things though, but I know that even the slightest of difference can produce different results.

I will most certainly report my results, futile or not.

Chadastrophic said:

The only common denominator I've noticed so far is that it only affects Sense UI devices.

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That seems to be the constant, to a degree. I'm seeing people state that they're having this issue on anything from the Samsung Galaxy S (i9000) to a Nexus running Cyanogen 6.1. That's people stating it though, so I'm not sure if they're actually experiencing the same issue or not.

I am biting my tongue, but I think I found another common denominator...I am going to post back in a coupla days once I've seen it last for this entire week.

zero_oli said:

hi,

i'm running cyanogenmod 6.1 on a desire hd and have been experiencing the suspend process problem exactly as described in this thread a nubmer of times now over the last week. so its definately not limited to devices running sense.

the only circumstances this behavior hasnt shown is when running 2g only with all other sorts of communications and sync off

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Yeah, it didn't seem 100% related to devices running Sense, so thanks for posting back to this.

My fiancee was experiencing this across her first two MT4G devices and has yet to experience the issue on her third and final MT4G. I want to see it run the rest of the week though before I share, but the issue did pop-up for her pretty much within 24-48 hours on her first two MT4G's.

Man, I am sorry to report that I gots nothin'. Ok, here was my original theory...

I was speculating that "something" inside the Google/Gmail account was the cause. My reasoning being, essentially, your info is stored in a database. When you get an Android device, that online database is synced locally with the phone's database. We each have different databases and there is more than just your apps, Market links, contacts, etc. I never exhibited the /suspend issue on phones that she experienced the /suspend issue on. I figured it was database-specific.

If a table contains a value, or rather, does not contain a specific value (or if columns are missing, etc.), it can cause an application to respond in a negative way. Sometimes, this causes an error to bubble up in an application. Other times, it doesn't. In my experience, I've seen much more subtle issues in databases, that don't cause errors or a crash, but instead just cause "undesirable results."

When my fiancee got her final, good replacement Plum Glacier, we started with a completely new Google account. We thought we nailed it, when a handful of days passed without seeing /suspend get out of control, leading to Android System and/or OS sucking down battery life. I think it was nearly a week into it and one day while she was out, she realized she lost battery life really quickly - i.e. left the house with 90% and by the time she got to the store, shopped for a bit and looked, her phone was down to like 30-40%. She knows how to check for /suspend and it was, of course, back.

It's still not something that can be completely ruled out, since it's not a very air-tight test. There could be something about my Google account (which I've had pretty much since Gmail beta was available) that's keeping me (and others like me) from getting it or that idea could be crap.

For some reason, I have never, ever seen this happen on my Glacier(s) running stock 2.2.1. Phones that I never saw the issue on, she saw the issue on. There is so much speculation around it, but it just seems like "some people" don't experience it and "some people" do. It's all over different devices, different skill levels, etc. No apps, same apps, whatever and it happens to some but not others.

Sorry to get anyone's hopes up. I'll keep looking for differences/similarities though and if I find anything at all I'll - or if anyone else finds anything, no matter how ridiculous it sounds (yes, we've tested the 'rock' and it doesn't appear to suffer from the /suspend issue) - post it here.

jpiano said:

It mainly happens after I use the web browser, then put the phone on standby for some reason.

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It truly is a mystery to this day. I've seen people say, "it happened right after I installed Handcent" or "it happens as soon as I do..." No one has come up with any concrete evidence thus far.

My fiancee has Handcent, I have Handcent. I used Handcent heavily, never had an issue. She stopped using Handcent - still has the issue. We've gotten so granular in our troubleshooting, we're literally tracking every step. LOL i.e. I pressed the trackpad to wake the phone, once; I unlocked the phone, I swiped my thumb once to view my Watchdog Widget on the screen to the left of my homescreen, etc., etc., etc.

So, for now, we just wait? My phone (and all previous phones) have been just fine. My fiancee however...yeah, I'm trying to find a fix pretty quickly.

That's cool that this thread is flushing out other ideas and possible variables. I like the idea of connecting it to the charger for a couple of seconds, but my fiancee is so used to just rebooting her phone each morning and sometimes again by mid-day, that it's easier for her to do just that.

jpiano said:

Even if I charge the phone for a few seconds, then unplug, it stays dormant without having to reboot.

Also, I saw on another xda blog (http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=870557&page=2) that someone linked this issue to a corrupt photo on the sd card. After formatting the card and restoring some files, says the issue has not returned!

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I like the microSD Card notion. This is such a weird issue, that it's so easily associated with other items - e.g. applications, usage patterns, etc. This seems feasible though, but the only way to know for sure is to reproduce it. My fiancee experiences the suspend issue daily, if she doesn't reboot regularly. So, I should be able to take her microSD card and use it in my phone and get the suspend issue. I don't want to 'muddy' up by swapping microSD cards, so I'll try reformatting her card and see if that makes any difference. She usually sees the issue within 24-48 hours of a fresh boot, so it shouldn't be long before we see if that fixes it or not. I can check the card for errors, etc. as well.

werk said:

I just realized that the only thing I've really changed is installed a new 16 gb SD card. Since then, no suspend process problems.

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I'll be upgrading to a 16 GB Class 10 soon, so I can give her my Samsung if need be. I'd really like to see if this is it though. It would explain the "some people get it and some people don't" pattern.