Recent Update Phonetrack Background Location Sending Broken

Yoga5841

other8026 thanks for the reply - I don't think I am using google play for geolocation. Is that better? I do have location set o allow all the time.

[deleted] thanks - that sounds a little different from my issue as my phonetrack works fine when open but stops working in the background, but maybe I'll open another issue.

GrapheneOS

Yoga5841 Allowing background usage is not the same as unrestricted battery usage mode. Press the option and you get the Optimized vs. Unrestricted choice. The app should be requesting Unrestricted battery mode itself if it needs it, which isn't clear. It won't accomplish much if the app doesn't know how to make use of it.

Yoga5841

GrapheneOS I was confused by the new battery menu but I eventually figured it out. The unrestricted setting is enabled, but still no luck.

GrapheneOS

It sounds this this app isn't compatible with Android 14 QPR2.

JeanB

You can try use OwnTracks

Work's very well with phonetrack server.

keenap

I have a Pixel 8 with PhoneTrack. But its working perfectly when you disable "Signifiant Motion" and battery optimazion. There is just a problem with "TYPE_SIGNIFICANT_MOTION" for me: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/11619-type-significant-motion-not-working-on-newest-gos But its okay, because it is working fine now with perfect battery usage.

Malakai

Really sad to find out that PhoneTrack isn't working anymore in the background.
What are you guys using now?
I tried ulogger, but it has a few drawbacks, like the fact that you can define only one server (in PhoneTrack we had the ability to define more logjobs), and I didn't find a parameter allowing me to set the maximum waiting time to get a fix. This means that when indoors (and there is no way to get a fix), ulogger will try for a long time, thus using more battery (PhoneTrack has this parameter).

Yoga5841

Malakai I've just been using ulogger as well. You may have tried this already, but if your issue is getting a GPS fix, you might be able to improve things by setting a larger value for minimum accuracy. My minimum time is set to 2 seconds, minimum distance is set to 20 meters, and minimum accuracy is set to 25 meters. With this, I get good performance and acceptable battery life (ulogger typically sits at around 5% of my battery usage). Hope this helps.

Malakai

Yoga5841
On ulogger I set the following, as I don't need it to log more often or on shorter distances :

Minimum time : 5 minutes
Minimum distance : 250 meters
Minimum accuracy : 100 meters

When checking the battery this morning, the battery usage utility showed that ulogger used 26% battery overnight (so between midnight and 8AM), the second app using the most battery being my mail app with 3%.
When I say it used 26% battery I don't mean that my battery dropped by 26% (like from 100% to 74%), but that ulogger used 26% of the used battery in that time (and 74% was split between other apps, the cellular part and system idle, mostly). BTW I am not really a fan of this battery usage display. I preferred when it displayed how much actually was used by the app (like if it showed 3% this means 3% of the battery capacity). But what can we do about it .... evolution.
So for me it doesn't seem to be viable to keep ulogger running in the background.

Yoga5841

Malakai Interesting. For me, ulogger tends to use about 2-4% battery overnight and "system apps" (which are annoyingly placed at the bottom of the list) make up almost all of the rest of it (94-96%) with everything else labeled <1%. I'm also not a fan of the way that battery usage is reported.

When I view by systems, it's about 80% system (IDLE), 8% WiFi, and everything else is less than 5%.

I guess the difference we're seeing could just be a difference in location/GPS signal quality or GPS hardware? Not sure. For what it's worth I'm using a pixel 6a.

Malakai

Yoga5841
I'm using a Pixel 8a. I also have a psim and a esim, and the radios seem to be kind of power hungry, as I loose 5% of the battery overnight (so without any interaction with the phone + no Internet connection active).

Yoga5841 "system apps" (which are annoyingly placed at the bottom of the list)

Never scrolled to the bottom, and I never knew that was there!

Yoga5841 When I view by systems, it's about 80% system (IDLE), 8% WiFi, and everything else is less than 5%.

You are not using cellular, are you? In my case, I have around 40% system (IDLE) and around the same for the mobile network.

Yoga5841

Malakai You are not using cellular, are you? In my case, I have around 40% system (IDLE) and around the same for the mobile network.

Actually, I am using cellular. I have an eSIM which sits at about 3% use overnight. I only use 4G/LTE not 5G. I believe 5G is supposed to be more power hungry but I'm not sure exactly how much so. Maybe that is the culprit?

Not sure how much % battery my phone actually loses overnight though.

Malakai

I tried a few mobile apps to report my position while in background and only one was able to do it but unreliably : OwnTracks.
I also tried GPSLogger, PhoneTrack and ulogger. None was able to report the position while in background.
With OwnTracks, it will report it once, then report the same position over a period of maybe more than one hour (during this time I am on the move and outside, so it can easily get a lock). Then it would send 2 reports one after the other (over a short period of time), and the next reports would be of the same position again over a long period of time.
So when looking at the track, it doesn't really represent the places I've been to.
Really sad to see that there isn't one reliable solution for this ...