Wifi turns automatically on when charging

Help Fairphone 1
,
1

I have a Fairphone first generation running Kola Nut 1.8.7. I do regular updates of my apps whenever the Playstore notifies me of new updates.

I always turn off the wifi connection before going to bed and I usually plug in the charging cable. In the last few weeks, I really don’t know since when exactly, when I got up I noticed that my phone’s wifi was on. I thought it strange, because I couldn’t recall enabling it in the first place. Since then this started to happen more and more often and now I realized, when I plug in the charger cable, eventually the wifi turns itself on automatically. Sometimes it takes a couple of minutes, sometimes it take one 5 seconds.

I was looking for this behaviour and I found a lot of threads on other android forums but they always seemed to be related to specific “smart wifi” app/settings installed by the carriers (spring, at&t, etc). And there were always US carriers. This doesn’t apply to me because I live in Germany and my carrier has no software installed on my phone.

I tried to find some obscure setting (perhaps I enabled something without realizing what I was doing) and then I went to Settings -> Wifi and then I pressed on the left button to to the advanced settings. There I found the setting “Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep”. I set this option from Always to Never, hoping that this would help but it doesn’t. Whenever I charge my phone, wifi turns itself on.

I don’t know what to do. It could be that an app got updated and brought a new setting by default like “turn wifi on when charging”, something like the “smart wifi” apps from the carriers mentioned above. I looked at many of the apps I usually use and I haven’t found any setting that goes in that direction. I cannot check every app to see which may be causing trouble, that would take me ages.

Does anybody have or had this issue? Do you know some way that I can track which app or which process is turning on the wifi? Perhaps some debugging option in the developer’s menu?

Thanks

2

You could install an app that reads the logs (logcat) or use #dic:adb to read the logs.

3

Hi Stefan

thank you for your quick replay. The logcat app you mentioned, is the “CatLog - Logcat Reader” on the playstore?

4

There are several. I prefer open source apps. You could try this one:

Logcat (Android Logcat without Root) - https://f-droid.org/app/com.tananaev.logcat

5

I installed the CatLog, but I’ll test the Logcat from F-droid. In the mean time I saved a log file where I have this behaviour. Even though I cleared the log before plugin in the usb cable the log got long very quicky.

2017-06-26-22-35-44.pdf (29.5 KB)

On page at the beginning I see that wpa_supplicant is active and shortly thereafter the wifi turns itself on. However I cannot determine which process spawns the activation of the wifi. Would you please take a quick look?

Thanks

6

Try to reset wpa_supplicant.

7

Well, restarting wpa_supplicant didn’t solve the problem. When I plug in a an USB cable connected to my computer or a charging usb cable the wifi turns itself on.

I wasn’t able to install Logcat (Android Logcat without Root), F-droid displays the entry gray and the “Install” button is missing. I downloaded the apk file from the website you posted and I only got an error that parsing the file went wrong.

8

I want to try adb but it seems I’m doing something wrong.

@home I use Gentoo and installed dev-util/android-tools (5.1.1_p13) which has the adb command.

With adb shell I was able to connect to my phone. Executing logcat gets me a lot of logs, I’m unable to find anything. Do you have a suggestion what I should be filtering for?

9

Okay, sorry, I’m using an alpha build of kitkat. Seems that the app I linked to doesn’t work below Android 4.4. It’s quite a hassle to use anyway, since it works without root.

You can directly use adb logcat. Filter for wifi for example.

Another idea that came to my mind: I use the app “Autostarts” (F-Droid) to block other apps that automatically start at certain events. I have one app that starts at the event “Power disconnected”. Maybe you have an app installed that does something on “Power connected”.

10

I found these entries interesting

40049 D/WifiManager(19000): Enter init, sThreadRefCount:0 40050 W/System.err( 555): java.lang.SecurityException: WifiService: Neither user 10154 nor current process has android.permission.CHANGE_WIFI_STATE. 40051 W/System.err( 555): at android.app.ContextImpl.enforce(ContextImpl.java:1613) 40052 W/System.err( 555): at android.app.ContextImpl.enforceCallingOrSelfPermission(ContextImpl.java:1642) 40053 W/System.err( 555): at com.android.server.WifiService.enforceChangePermission(WifiService.java:641) 40054 W/System.err( 555): at com.android.server.WifiService.getWifiServiceMessenger(WifiService.java:1067) 40055 W/System.err( 555): at android.net.wifi.IWifiManager$Stub.onTransact(IWifiManager.java:408) 40056 W/System.err( 555): at android.os.Binder.execTransact(Binder.java:351) 40057 W/System.err( 555): at dalvik.system.NativeStart.run(Native Method) 40058 E/WifiManager(19000): mWifiServiceMessenger == null

and

40140 D/StatusBar.BatteryController( 668): mBatteryPercentage is 100% mShouldShowBatteryPercentage is true mLabelViews.size() 1 40141 D/PowerUI ( 668): action = android.intent.action.BATTERY_CHANGED 40142 D/PowerUI ( 668): Intent start() ret = false mHideLowBDialog= true 40143 D/PowerUI ( 668): oldBatteryLevel = 100mBatteryLevel = 100 40144 D/PowerUI ( 668): dismissLowBatteryWarning 40145 D/Bluetooth HS/HF( 737): [BT][HFG] [API] mStateReceiver.onReceive(android.intent.action.BATTERY_CHANGED) 40146 D/Bluetooth HS/HF( 737): [BT][HFG] [API] mHandler.handleMessage(9) 40147 D/Bluetooth HS/HF( 737): [BT][HFG] [API] updateBatteryState 40148 D/WifiService( 555): onReceive, action:android.intent.action.BATTERY_CHANGED 40149 V/Provider/Settings( 555): from settings cache , name = wifi_idle_ms , value = null 40150 V/Provider/Settings( 555): from settings cache , name = stay_on_while_plugged_in , value = 0 40151 D/WifiService( 555): ACTION_BATTERY_CHANGED pluggedType: 2

the logs appear so fast, I think this is the place where the wifi activated itself. It seems that the WifiService activates when there is a trigger from ACTION_BATTERY or something. I don’t know what to do :frowning:

11

I am not aware of having such an app. I haven’t installed new apps for a long time, I’ve been just updating my current apps. How could I find out if I have such an app? I’ll try the Autostarts app.

Thanks

12

I didn’t find a “Autostarts” app on F-Droid, but I found this http://elsdoerfer.name/android-autostarts is that the app you meant?

13

yep thats the app. :slight_smile:

Edit: It was free on F-Droid.
Edit2: It should be available in the F-Droid archive that can be enabled in F-Droid’s settings.

14

Thanks a lot, I’ll try the F-Droid archives tomorrow, it’s getting late.

1 Like
15

Did you also disable “Scanning always available” in Settings > WiFi > Advanced?

16

Hi Stefan

I don’t have that option. I only have “Network notification” (not checked), “Keep Wifi on…”, “wifi optimization” (checked), “MAC Address” (read-only) and “IP Address” (also read-only).

I installed autostarts, in the “Power connected” section I have:

  • AccuWeather
  • Amazon Shopping
  • Fairphone Updater
  • Google+ (4 times)
  • Picasa Uploader
  • Google Play services (3 times)
  • IBM Verse
  • Flashlight
  • Navigation

I disabled them all (using the disable option in the autostarts app) but when I plug in the charging cord the wifi turns on again :frowning:

17

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