Signal Notification issue + googleplay services without logged in

trilogy6202

On which battery profile do you have Signal on? And just to get it into perspective, what have the total battery drain been while Signal drained 1 %?

My Signal app is also installed directly from their website, not that I think it matters in relation to the battery drain issue.

2dognight

trilogy6202
I have it set to unrestricted. I must have read to set it that way somewhere. I'm not sure how to answer the 2nd question since I had the phone on the charger for a bit earlier today. It had been down to about 40%, and I probably charged it up to about 75% when I received a call, and is now at 68%. But my recollection is that Signal's battery usage is always fairly low. It's always phone idle, mobile network, screen etc at the top of the battery usage list, and Signal way down near the bottom. I noticed this because there is always a persistent Signal notification "Background connection enabled" hanging around, and so I really expected it to be higher usage.

trilogy6202

2dognight

Would you mind testing for a longer period, say something like from 100 % to something like 20 to 30 % and report back how much battery Signal drained and what it's screen time was?

I've tried all battery modes and optimized and unrestricted didn't seem to do any difference battery wise. Only restricted was able to stop the battery drain but with the notifications as a trade off.

2dognight

trilogy6202
Surely. I'm not sure where to find the "screen time" but I'll have a look. Also I should note that I don't actually use Signal much so maybe that's the whole enchilada right there. I'll charge to 100%, wait till the batt is low, and let you know what it says.

[deleted]

2dognight another factor affecting battery drain is network performance. Also, regardless of existence of Play services, if you use your messenger for video calling a lot (and that happens with any messenger), it will be right there at the top of your battery usage... so please do not over analyse things, as long as you are happy with battery performance and reliability or you might find yourself switching messengers and not be satisfied with any of them.

trilogy6202

2dognight

Thanks a lot that will be a great help. Regarding screen time I just mend your rough estimation of how much you actually used the app in that period.

I don't use Signal all that much either and only for messaging which is why 25-35 % battery drain over one charge cycle is completely unacceptable to me.

Colvdv

I got rid of the official Signal app and switched to Molly-FOSS and this issue seems to be solved for me. It has been several weeks and all is good.

You can read about Molly here:
https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android

W1zardK1ng

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, i settled with unrestricted battery for signal as all of my communication is through signal i cant live without the notifications.
Also i cant find the ideal battery drain as i use signal for long voice and video calls, ill wait for @2dognight for his findings.
At this moment i don't want to extend my trust to one more party by using Molly, but ill have a look on it later.

W1zardK1ng

Still would like to know if anyone is using Signal with google play services installed but NOT LOGGED IN and managed to get the notifications work properly.

dazinism

W1zardK1ng
Pretty certain if you have the Play apps installed, and maybe start Play Services, before you set Signal up (first run after install or clearing its storage from its app info screen) then it will use Googles push notifications whether you are logged into Google or not.

Need to grant Play Services battery optimisation exemption for it to provide reliable/quick push notifications.

pdagenius

W1zardK1ng I use Signal with GPS installed and not logged in. Works a treat.

dc32f0cfe84def651e0e

W1zardK1ng BTW, there is a degoogled fork of Signal called Langis: https://langis.cloudfrancois.fr

2dognight

trilogy6202
Test is underway. I'll make an effort to use Signal a bit. Battery is down from 100% to 71% over the last 18 hours so will be a bit.

trilogy6202

2dognight
Great thanks. You don't need to go out of the way to actively use the app. The interesting part to me is the battery usage while in background.

2dognight

trilogy6202 Great thanks. You don't need to go out of the way to actively use the app. The interesting part to me is the battery usage while in background.

OK here are the results since I took my phone off the charger at 100% about 1 day, 18 hours ago.
Battery is now at 24%.

I did use Signal a lot (for me) trying for a "real world" test. I'm guessing I used it roughly 5x my typical amount.

Sent 15 messages (7 w/attached photos)
Received 8 messages
Had 2 unanswered/missed voice calls
Had 1 voice call lasting about 10 minutes.

Battery usage for Signal:
Used for 1 day, 18 hr, 28 min and is at (drumroll...) 7%

Note that the usage time for Signal is essentially the same as the time since the last full charge (except for a reboot for the system update) because of Signal's persistent "Background connection enabled" always being on.

Top battery users:

Phone idle: 21%
Screen: 10%
Vanadium: 7%
Signal: 7%
WiFi: 5%
System(CPU): 2%
Android System: 1%
OVPN: 1%
Launcher: 1%
Camera: 1%

Duckduck

2dognight could you post your settings for this result? I am very interested. Sounds like you struck battery gold!
Battery setting on Signal?
Do you use overall battery optimisation?
Do you have the notification all the time saying signal is running in the background?

I'm using FOSS Molly and battery is a drag!
Have tried both optimised and unrestricted to no luck. Overall battery is still, cause GOS!

2dognight

Duckduck
I don't think I did anything magic. I have never had any of the Google Play trifecta in my owner profile. I installed Signal using the .apk from here:

https://signal.org/android/apk/

It has prompted me to update it at least once IIRC. That persistent background connection thing is always hanging around, the notifications are instant, and it just kinda works ... ? Battery is set to unrestricted for Signal.

dazinism

Quality of the network connection to the push server (Google or Signals own servers for people without Play Services) has significant effect on battery drain.

The app (Signal or Play Services) aims to keep a tcp port open to the push server. To do this every now and then the app wakes the phone out of doze/low power mode to see if the connection is still open.
The apps have an algorithm that governs how often the phone wakes depending on how well its been able to keep the connection open. More waking gives more battery drain

Play Services has a better algorithm.
If you dont have Play Ive found the conversations.im implementation is also good. Signals is OK.

If you are somewhere with patchy signal drain will be higher

2dognight

dazinism If you are somewhere with patchy signal drain will be higher

Yeah maybe that's it. I do tend to stick to WiFi most of the time, and I live in an urban area with good cell coverage. I'd guess about 75% of the Signal messages I documented above happened while on mobile data, but the rest of the time I was in airplane mode with WiFi on and snuggled up to a router.

trilogy6202

2dognight Thanks a lot for your effort. It is indeed very impressive results. I too live in an urban area close to a cell tower and thus with very good signal strength. I do however mainly use cellular plus another thing I didn't think about before is that I have an always on wireguard vpn.

@dazinism How do you think an always on wireguard vpn affect signals connection to it's servers?

2dognight

trilogy6202
FYI I had an always on VPN going through all of that. It's a wireguard connection. It's that OVPN entry 3rd up from the bottom clocking it at 1% battery.