Reality check: phones are allowed to get warm, right?

I just got the Fairphone 2. After downloading a bunch of apps, it’s getting warm (in the upper half, not where the battery is located). This is normal and I’m just being paranoid, right?

Yes. My old Mac Pro desktop computer I’m writing this on has its chip at 66°C right now, and modern portable devices haven’t even got a fan. The heat just needs to go somewhere. :slight_smile:

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Well, I kind of agree with reservations.
If the phone is really hot there, it’s usually caused by an app that’s “out of control” causing the SoC to do overtime. Or you are running some app, that is meant to stress the chip (like 3D-rendering?).
When I do experience that kind of heating up, I turn the phone off, wait a minute and switch it on again. Sometimes I have to do it two or three times (maybe the process that is running initially stays cached and continues?).
So I really would be cautios. It should not turn into an oven as computers sometimes do.
When it’s too hot, this might stress the SIM- and micro SD-cards as well; although I would not worry about that too much.

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Searching for cell network or using GPS location, my FP2 overheats as well. Not rough misbehavior of apps from who-know-where. Most common dating apps or maps - whatever basic functionality you can imagine.

I’m not really sure if it was intention to have operation temperature 40-50 degrees Celsius???

Poor design.
Though, just one of many bugs …

Sorry, but I really have to disagree on this point.
My phone does not operate on 40 to 50° Celsius.
As I already stated above. And as it happens, it’s not neccessarily the case, that the app running amok is presenting itself.
In my case this happens in the background and I have not found out, which one was responsible.

So it may be a defect in the case of your phone, or it might be an app in the background, it definitely is not a design flaw.

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As soon as the file structure is altered a background service named “Media Storage” which updates the file index kicks in. The more files which are new or altered the longer it will be active and as far as I could experience runs at a high priority causing battery drain and of course heat due to heavy cpu usage.

Read more about my first experience with it

and

https://forum.fairphone.com/t/lineageos-fork-including-microg/34877/115

I could experience that some apps also place .nomedia files into specific folders while being installed (e.g. Osmand navigation app).

Anyway, I advise to always reboot the phone once having “paused” installing new apps or having received a system update. It´s still a phone and no server made for running 24/7.

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The same happened to me when I first installed Facebook, WhatsApp, etc. - also in the upper half of the phone, not the battery. It hasn’t happened since.

Seems to be an indication, that those apps are quite invasive or, well, active in scanning your phone etc., when being installed. :wink:

Was really new to me, what @Patrick1 posted regarding the file-structure; but that explains a lot. Indexing directories on Windows computers can be a real nuisance as well; although rather speed-wise than heat-wise with computers. Seems to be a bit like that, if I got it right.

This Media service belongs to the OS itself. Yes, it should speed up file access and at last increase performance.

Some apps like Whatsapp etc. do scan your phone for several reasons though.

I once had transferred a languag pack to the phone for usage with the browser. Some about 16k small files and ~3.5GB data. The service was busy indexing for many hours.
Then I learned what these .nomedia files was for.
Osmand navigation also can reach quite a size. So after searching through the folders I realized it automatically had placed some .nomedia files in
folders while being installed which should not be scanned.
So I believe there are more apps out there acting this way. But for all personal data being copied to the phone the user have to determine if they should be scanned (recognised by the system and some apps) or not.
The worst thing that could happen is having to clear the data of the service to have it running for long time again. Stopping it won´t hold for too long.
I had to do this in the past as I did not know not to mess with the notifications/ringtones folders.

That´s what you get without any cooling system or fan. So the only thing a phones cpu can dissipate heat to it the casing or frame.
Indeed this can cause disturbance to some users who may not have experienced such heat exposure from previous phone models.

But, yes - who can tell for sure if an app went beserk as well. Taking a glance into the settings->apps->running list may give an idea.

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