Post marshmallow quirks

[CaptainAmerica]

So, VZ here in Massachusetts pushed the Marshmallow OTA update on my phone yesterday evening. I backed-up all of the important stuff and then this morning I took the plunge and launched the update.

It took about 15 minutes to go through the main install, with the Android bot on the black background and the tiny blue progress bar. After it rebooted it got me worried for a little, because the phone stayed a while with the white Moto logo doing apparently nothing. After a few minutes it finally started to do the famous "app optimization", which lasted another 10 minutes or so.

All in all it took about 30 minutes (and over 10% of battery level...) to complete the updated. Somehow I had to manually update one of the Google system app, Google Play Service, I believe. I got the warning triangle in the notification bar telling me that I had to do it. It went without a hitch, though, and after doing that the phone looked pretty much as it was before.

A few comments about what I have noticed so far:

- The look of the Command Center has changed. That is the round widget that takes the top one third of the main home screen. I like this new one. Instead of getting those two little "wings" when you tap on it with more info, not it sprouts two smaller circles with Min/Max temperature at your location and battery percentage. It reminds me of how it was in my old RazrM
- The Command Center now allows quick access to your next event on the calendar, in the lower half of the main circle.
- The weather page as changed too, now it has all black background and white text and icons. Call me drab, but I like this look much better than the previous one, which always seemed to me like a bunch of different colors thrown together
- The Calendar app has been overhauled. Now the month view actually show you the daily events. Tiny fonts and only the first eight characters or so, but MUCH better than the useless colored bar of the old Calendar. Definitely like this update!
- The notifications when the screen is off are now a mix of white and light blue fonts. Not a big deal, but pleasant.
- In the "Battery" settings there is now another menu item tapping on the three vertical dots on the upper right, "Battery Optimization". It allows to turn on battery optimization for all apps at once or select which one you want to optimize. I turned it on for all, let's see what happens. I suppose this is the "Doze" function?

So far I have not noticed any adverse reaction to the update. My Bluetooth pair list is all there too, by the way. The phone worked as always with BT in my car and it is synchronizing with my FitBit Charge HR without me having to redo anything.

All apps that I have tried so far are working as usual. Too early to say if there is an impact on battery life. It is a little past noon here and I am at 66%.

I have had the Turbo for about eighteen months now, so I have noticed a reduction in how long it goes on a charge. I'd say still within what you would expect with the normal capacity decay of a Li-Ion battery. I can still go easily the whole day on a charge with some margin left, unless I use heavily the GPS.

That's all for now, folks. I will probably do a cache wipe later today, just to be on the safe side, but all is well.

Oh, and by the way, the update also reclaimed a good 3% of my storage space. I do not think it is just because it deleted the install file, the space was taken even before. Maybe as part of the post-install clean-up Android wiped some hidden garbage. Nice bonus!!!

 

[radon222]

You'll probably find that the colored rings on your notifications go away with time and go back to all white. I think they're only a "Hey Look I'm New" thing.

You can change the color of the battery ring on the Command Center to one of 16 pre-defined colors if you'd like.

I like the new Calendar app too, but miss the direct link in the Command Center. That only works when you have an imminent event.

BT pairings should hold, unless (until) you do a battery recalibration. My biggest issue so far is that the battery calibration has gotten much more sensitve to using my wireless charger. So Battery re-cals are becoming more frequent and thus BT re-pairing as well.

Enjoy your Marshmallow

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Radon222, yes, thank you, I got a nice pop-up when the phone rebooted notifying of the option to change color of the battery ring. The blue shade they used is kind of cool, I think I will leave as it is for now

Interesting comment about the BT pairing going away with a battery recal. If I may ask, what procedure to do you use to recalibrate the battery?

 

[radon222]

It's rather simple. Press and hold the power button. Ignore the Power Off pop-up and keep holding the power button until the phone reboots. Then plug in to the turbo charger overnight.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Okay, thanks. I knew that doing what you described essentially forces a true reboot of the phone. I was not aware that following that with a full charge would recalibrate the battery. Do you leave then the phone on while doing the overnight charging or do you turn it off after plugging in the charger?

 

[radon222]

I've done it both ways...not sure it makes a difference or not.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Okay, I will give it a try and see what happens with the BT pairing.

Right now I am doing a cache wipe from the recovery menu. I was hoping that the Marshmallow update would resolve the annoying problem of taking forever to format the cache following the wipe.

NOPE! Still taking its time, if it is like before it will be at least 20-25 minutes before it is done... Very annoying.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Finished the cache formatting in about 15 minutes. Faster than with Lollipop, but much slower than with any other phone I have had. No big deal, it is not like I am going to do it every day... So far so good, 44% battery at 3:15pm. Not bad considering I have not recharged since BEFORE the update.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I may have spoken too soon, although it might have been just a freak accident/coincidence: at some point this afternoon my entire calendar got wiped. All the events I had in my Calendar app prior to the update had been carried over to the new Calendar app in Marshmallow. I remember during the day the phone chiming when a reminder came up. Then as I was leaving the office I opened the calendar and...Nothing. I see only the national US holidays, which are pre-loaded.

I synch'd with my Google account, nothing. I checked my Google Calendar accessing it from my computer, empty as well.

This is really freaky... I submitted an inquiry to Google, but I am not very hopeful I can recover the calendar content.

I will probably be able to sync it with my Outlook calendar at work. I have an app, LocalSync, that I used with my previous phone. That should allow me to recover the majority of my recurring events.

It is not what I would consider a major disaster, but things that I cannot explain really irritates me...

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Okay, all is well again, I was able to sync my phone Calendar with my PC Outlook Calendar. It took longer than expected, as I had to reinstall LocalSync both on my phone and PC. The update to Marshmallow had removed the app, but for some reason even after re-installing it I could not pair the phone with the PC. After re-installing the program on the PC everything worked.

I am thinking that the app being removed from my phone with the Marshmallow update may have something to do with the calendar being erased. The way LocalSync work is that it creates another account, separate from my Google one, linked to the email account used for Outlook. In effect, that creates two separate calendars that can be both shown using the Calendar app.

What is strange is that it did not happen immediately after the update to Marshmallow. That would have been more explainable, but that the old calendar survived for almost a day and then disappeared is really weird.

At any rate, problem solved. Other than that, smooth sailing. I noticed that now "Cell Standby" is always at the top of the battery stats, followed by "Screen". Before it was almost always "Screen" to be at the top, unless I did not use the phone for several hours in a row. Either Doze does a very good job in taming power consumption from apps when idle, or there is something screwy in Marshmallow with the handling of the phone hardware. I always keep the Turbo set as "LTE/CDMA" not "Global" (unless I am traveling out of the country), which supposedly should minimize power draw. Let's see how it goes in the next few days. The phone for sure seems to "sip" power now when the screen is off.

 

[JDH]

Strange, I now have no choices for network type, oly 4G. I used to have choices of global or CDMA too but not since 6.0.1

 

[radon222]

Really JDH? I still have the same options.

sent from my ZenPad 3S 10

 

[CaptainAmerica]

JDH, that is REALLY odd, the Turbo is a Global phone, it can work pretty much everywhere on the planet.

You should see a screen like this under Settings -> More -> Cellular Networks:

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Doze seems to be working really well when the screen is off putting apps to sleep or whatever it does.

On the other hand, either Marshmallow reports power consumption differently or there is a bug somewhere:

1027mAh is more than 25% of the total battery capacity. The phone has been on since around 7:15 this morning, so about nine hours. I have not made or received phone calls, just sent a few texts and done stuff that required data upload/download only when on Wi-Fi.

I have no Facebook, Snapchat, Messenger, Tweeter, etc. Only email and WhatsApp are the apps active with screen off that can generate cell traffic and like I said I have been on Wi-Fi all day with the exception of maybe 30 minutes driving.

On the other hand, I am still at 73% battery, so it is not like the battery is being abnormally depleted. That is why I think it is a bug or a weird way M is now reporting Cell standby current draw.

Anybody noticed the same thing?

 

[JDH]

Right you are, i was looking in tbe wrong place. You have to go to about phone and then "more" to find it. I changed it from global to LTE/CDMA. I keep wifi calling on but advanced calling off, too many dropped calls floating from 4g to 3g around Frederick MD. Always seemed to work fine in global I'll try the new setting for a while.