(reproducable) Droid X issue: battery stops charging when USB service dies

[tliebeck]

Hello all,

I'm the author of SystemPanel, which includes task management (killing) features. I've recently noticed a problem with my Droid X where it suddenly will stop accepting a charge.

For example, the screenshot below shows that the phone plugged in overnight, yet battery continues to drain:

With a bit of testing, it appears that killing the app "usb" results in this behavior occurring. Once it has been killed, the phone will never accept a charge until it the phone is rebooted.

I would greatly appreciate if a fellow Droid X owner could verify this for me. To do this, use SystemPanel (Lite version will work fine, as will ANY task killer, or the OS' own task killer) to terminate the "usb" program. The full name of the process is "com.motorola.usb". Any task manager should also reproduce the behavior if you perform a "end all" or "kill all" operation. Then unplug the device from USB/AC power (if it was plugged in) and then reconnect it. You should see no indication of a USB connection and/or charging if your device suffers the same problem. The issue can then be corrected by rebooting the phone.

Here is the process as shown by SystemPanel:

It appears that Motorola has incorrectly allowed this process to be user-killable and/or has failed to automatically restart it in the event that it terminates or otherwise fails.

Would greatly appreciate feedback on this problem, if this is not unique to my device, I'll be modifying SytemPanel immediately to avoid ever killing this process.

Best regards
--Tod Liebeck / NextApp, Inc.

 

[Backnblack]

Just another reason that a task killer is not needed....IMHO

 

[tliebeck]

Just another reason that a task killer is not needed....IMHO

SystemPanel is not a "task killer" in the traditional sense (i.e., it does not automatically kill tasks). I personally think automatic task killing is a *terrible* idea: Why Automatic Task Killing is a Bad Idea | android.nextapp.com

It does however show what's running, and does provide the capability to end tasks. There's also an "End All" button which can be used if your phone is experience major performance issues and you don't have time to track down the source of the problem.

While there's no reason to use a task killer all the time to "free memory" and such, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to occasionally manually end tasks.

 

[Sydman]

I agree with that in the sense of the web browser or media player, since you can't "actually" close them. That is where a task ender makes perfect sense.

 

[tliebeck]

I've released an update to SystemPanel (1.0.4) to avoid ever killing this service. It won't be ended by "End All" regardless of what level of application the user requests to be terminated. Directly ending it is still possible (as it is by using the OS' own task killer), but very much not recommended.

 

[GeekSpeak411]

this is great. I have been having this issue, so I deleted my old task managers and got yours. I don't know if it works yet, but I will let you know! (I also like the system monitor, it is a nice touch.)