OTA suspension of Nexus S to Android 4 updates: problems and extreme power consumption

Despite the fact that the news was fresh a little more than a month ago, it does not seem to lose relevance, because there was no information about the renewal of the ability to upgrade Nexus S to ICS 4.0.3, or about any update of the operating system version itself. system.

The bottom line is that on December 20, after only 4 days from the start of the OTA update of the Nexus S to the new OS version, Google halted this process around the world. Despite the fact that many users continued to receive updates over the air and even installed them, after a reboot, the phone returned to the 2.3.x version of the OS. The company itself did not name the reasons for the suspension of updates, but stated that it was “monitoring feedback”, i.e. in free translation, received many, many complaints about the quality of the new firmware (honest version of the translation - follows the reviews).

In fact, the Android OTA-update on Nexus S devices didn’t like many users. The Internet has got hold of numerous topics of disappointment, where consumers complained about its quality. A fairly good example of universal frustration can be read in English, for example, here . Users who expressed their dissatisfaction with the quality of the update of Samsung itself or the mobile operator (if the phone was purchased from them) received either advice to make a complete reset of everything and everything (what a surprise), or a proposal to send the phone to the company for nothing, so that there they figured it out. That is, in general, no adequate solution was proposed on the spot.
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The main complaints of users are:

- full "okkarpichivanie" phone after the update or deficiencies in the final installation of ICS
- deterioration in the quality of signal reception
- unauthorized reboots and shutdowns, large use of RAM
- significant performance degradation, delay in response on vital screens such as unlocking and answering a call
- significantly reduced battery life

Some claims can be attributed to the almost inevitable bugs when updating: not every user can independently clean up the phone cache and applications after the update (he himself was the same, but taught). The list of problems is given from the rarest to the most common. Thus, the situation with energy consumption is most significant and common.

On the left is the situation with the charge on my device. Subjectively, the problem has lain somewhere deep in the official firmware itself, because neither the use of its modifications, nor the change of the kernel helps or only partially helps. The screenshot itself was taken from the modified version, since The official could not stretch and work day in standby mode. The main culprits of excessive appetites of the phone are the “Android system” and “Android OS” processes, which consume an unnaturally high amount of energy. On version 2.3.7, they hardly crossed the threshold of a few percent, but now their appetites have grown by about 5-10 times.

On these screenshots you can see the details (again, in my case), displayed in the settings when you click on each of the items. If the “Android system” is not so often active and honestly shows which processes consumed the battery, then the “Android OS” does one-fifth of the time, without revealing what it controls. Unfortunately, I do not have the opportunity to compare my reports on time and processes with the version of Android 2.3.7, but the fact of a repeated increase in power consumption definitely takes place. Some make assumptions and associate this situation with the incorrect prioritization by the developers at ICS itself: the phone somehow fails to dive into the normal standby mode when locked, and sometimes its wakeful mode takes up to 90% of the time from the entire device operation, regardless of how long it has actually been used.

Neither Samsung nor Google say anything about this and vaguely react to customer requests, which is an implicit recognition of the problem. The corporation of good does not give any comments on the questions asked precisely about the rapid consumption of charge. At the same time, users who have already been updated to Android ICS are in an improvised “trap”: there is no official way to downgrade or solve the problem, and the phone flashing threatens to lose the warranty. However, the last option is equivalent to a dead-on poultice: the life time of the phone in modified versions of ICS is increased by turning off all unnecessary services in it. Most likely, the upgrade process will be restored after upgrading the Android version to 4.0.4 - no, too ominously - to 4.1.0, where, after fixing existing bugs, new ones should appear and new features will be introduced. However, in December, Google answered the questions of solving the problem “next month”, which is now coming to an end. Now on Android 4.x versions there is only 0.6% of users with total dominance of versions 2.3.x - 55.5%.

Of course, there are users who say that they have no problems with updating and everything works better than ever. Unfortunately, we can’t check how many applications they have installed on the phone and if they don’t charge it every half day, so we can only be happy for them. Separately, I (perhaps not only) will be grateful to habrayusers who will describe their situation in the comments with problems on ICS, if they are updated and they have the latest.

PS In addition to software problems, many users also have complaints about the appearance and some new solutions in Android 4.0.3. The xda-developers complaint topic from mid-December has grown to nearly 550 posts. Perhaps, I will raise the problem of usability in one of the following topics, if enough information is gathered.