Google Play Services drains almost 80% battery

nobodydrinkswater

Since about 2 weeks my battery gets drained by the Google Play Services app.
I did not allow background usage.
Does anyone have similar problems or has an idea to solve this?

MineralWater

I could guess this happens because you denied it using background services. It will probably constantly try to do these tasks in background, but can't, because it's a dead end.

The services need to run in background, that is mainly what they are doing. You can deny them network access, if you worry it might phone home.

Play Store doesn't need background services.

nobodydrinkswater

I only need the Google Play Services for the FIDO functionality.

In the logs I can see that Signal is trying to activate it, possible because of notifications.
I would prefer that my notification don't go over google.

But I will try with "allow background usage" and "optimized".

MineralWater

nobodydrinkswater

When play services are installed in the same profile where you install Signal, it will use the PlayServices.

If you just need them for FIDO (that is this password thing, right?) you could probably open a new profile just for that, or vice versa a new profile just for signal.

When you don't have play services installed in that profile, and install Signal with the apk. from the Signal Website, it will use its own push service for messages instead of play services.

nobodydrinkswater

FIDO is for using yubikeys and passkeys, which I need in my primary profile.

I initially installed Signal via apk, but perhaps I updated the app over Google Play Store and this caused the usage spike. Initially no app should have used the Google Play Services.

Now I have to check if other apps have been "taken over" by the Google Play Store.

n3t_admin

nobodydrinkswater I initially installed Signal via apk, but perhaps I updated the app over Google Play Store and this caused the usage spike.

That has nothing to do with the problem.

Signal.apk is designed to use Google Play Services (or rather Firebase, FCM) as the notifications provider by default. If it detects the app signature in the same profile, it will use it - no matter what.
That is default Android behavior and around 99% of people around the world use Play Services on stock Android forks.
You would have to install Signal before installing Play Services.
Or just use MollyFOSS, where you can choose to use WebSocket as your notifications provider and bypass Play Services altogether. Molly is less proprietary than Signal overall and has some nifty features too, so I'd give it a shot.

nobodydrinkswater

I did install the Play Services only recently. Signal way before that via apk.
Do I understand correctly that it is not possible to have (google-free) Signal and working Yubikeys in the same profile?
Thanks for the tip. I will look into MollyFOSS.

n3t_admin

nobodydrinkswater Signal way before that via apk.

I don't have a device to test this on, but on iOS you can manually renew push registration with Apple. I assume there might be a similar option on Android which might have rescanned for Play Services after an update? No clue honestly.
But yeah, MollyFOSS is your best bet. You can even get it from Accrescent :)