Android 12 - refresh rate is broken, 90hz all the time

[Morgrain]

I just noticed that my Pixel 4 XL (currently has the newest Android 12/November patch) does not cycle between 60 and 90 hz anymore. I just noticed an unexpectated and new drain on the battery and finally found the culprit.

Yes, I checked developer options, the phone is NOT forcing 90hz. I checked with developer options (show refresh rate) and the phone is constantly, meaning 100% using 90hz, it never changes to 60. No matter what I do - Youtube, phone, scrolling, doing nothing, idling, homescreen, newspaper app, Audible - it matters not. It is constantly forcing 90hz WITHOUT having ever clicked the 90hz force toggle. This is putting a drain on the battery that is just unacceptable.

Can you guys confirm this?

 

[blackhawk]

Try clearing the system cache.
A factory reset maybe be needed after a major OTA firmware upgrade but there's no guarantee it will resolve it.
Updates tend to break things...

 

[Morgrain]

Try clearing the system cache.
A factory reset maybe be needed after a major OTA firmware upgrade but there's no guarantee it will resolve it.
Updates tend to break things...

The phone was - actually - already factor reset. After doing the Android 12 update, I factory reset it and gave it to a family member, that one set it up new. So it's not a "remnant" of Android 11.

 

[v12xke]

The phone was - actually - already factor reset. After doing the Android 12 update, I factory reset it and gave it to a family member, that one set it up new. So it's not a "remnant" of Android 11.

I would re-flash with the latest full image, leaving the script intact (allowing the data partition to be wiped). This may be inconvenient but it's the only way you will know if there is a hardware issue with the phone. I'd also like to know what led you to the refresh rate. In other words, what made you look there. The stock battery monitor is not very good and even looking at system apps (screen, ambient display) you only get time and a percentage of the battery.

 

[kmry]

is the same on 12 and 11, i just installed 11 and is always 90hz

 

[A.Dirani]

yes i can confirm, i had the same issue and i just boght my pixel 4 xl 10 days ago. updated to android 13 beta now and it still has the same problem. really weird but i think that google just decided that its best for google pixel 4 owners to have 90hz all the time now cause u know its "more common" now

 

[GjorgiDxc]

Google changed how Smooth display works during the cycle of the phone. IIRC it was the same on A11 too. Basically the only time it goes 60hz is during battery saving mode & in some specific apps that prohibit it. It also disables it when HBM is on.

 

[onemandivision]

That doesn't make a lot of sense, you can save much more energy by just raising to 90hz for touch and animations and otherwise reduce to 60hz independently of the battery state.

I had the pixel 7 Pro for a while and can confirm that it works there as expected (60 for static content & no touch events, otherwise raises up to 120hz), just not for the pixel 4 XL.

This does seem like a bug to me and explains why battery life (SOT) got so much worse. I wonder if it's an intended degradation to get people to upgrade..

 

[Hamid Chikh]

Fix it with adb, set minimal refresh rate
adb shell settings put system min_refresh_rate 1.0
adb shell settings put system peak_refresh_rate 90.0

 

[onemandivision]

Tested that, does not work either unfortunately. Display stays on 90Hz all the time

 

[Hamid Chikh]

Tested that, does not work either unfortunately. Display stays on 90Hz all the time

Confirm you have extra dim disabled, and brightness 60%

 

[onemandivision]

Confirmed, does not make a difference

 

[onemandivision]

Out of nowhere it started working. The only thing I changed in between is brightness and extra dim, ending up with the same setting as before (full brightness, extra dim disabled). Didn't work straight away, but after leaving the phone for 5 minutes and picking it up again, I immediately noticed (display refresh rate setting was still enabled)

Thank you for your help, Hamid!

 

[Hamid Chikh]

Out of nowhere it started working. The only thing I changed in between is brightness and extra dim, ending up with the same setting as before (full brightness, extra dim disabled). Didn't work straight away, but after leaving the phone for 5 minutes and picking it up again, I immediately noticed (display refresh rate setting was still enabled)

Thank you for your help, Hamid!

No problem, glad i helped!
Feel free to visit my optimization threads, it might help improve your battery life and performance.

 

[onemandivision]

One last remark: It didn't really work well at first, at least not as consistently as on the pixel 7 that I've tried. After some trial and error, playing around with various settings, the culprit seems to have the "increase touchscreen sensitivity" setting that I had enabled. Since turning it off, the switching between 60 and 90Hz is much better. Brightness and extra dim don't seem to play a role.

Battery life also seems to have improved a lot (now at ~50% at the end of the day compared to <20% before)