Known Issues on Android 5.0/5.1

[MURTUMA]

Isn't that how it is supposed to work? When you're connected to WiFi, all data goes through WiFi network and not mobile data network. To me this sounds logical, but I do not know how these things actually work so it's only a guess.

[TraianC]

No, it shouldn't work like that. In Android 4+ it works ok. The total mobile data traffic is available all the time, even when connected to WiFi. The problem is in Android 5.

[TraianC]

Hi Martin,

I can't take a bug report. The phone doesn't generate it. I've waited a couple of hours but I didn't got any report. I've tried both ways from Developer Menu and from Power Menu. No luck.

To test my problem I've created a simple test flow with three actions. First, I have Init Variables Network Traffic, then I have a Script where I calculate total mobile data (as sum of mobile_received_bytes and mobile_transmitted_bytes) and total data (as sum of total_received_bytes and total_transmitted_bytes). Then, I display the two sums on screen.

Now, when I'm connected to mobile network the total mobile data is ok and the total data is ok. When I'm connected to WiFi the total mobile data is zero, but total data is ok (the same value as when I'm connected to mobile network).

The Android version is 5.0.1.

I hope I've explained my problem clearly enough.

Regards,
Traian

[TraianC]

One possible workaround could be to store the total traffic (mobile+WiFi) at each network type change and to further process that.

[Martin]

Maybe I have found another workaround. Could you please create an action Init Variable Text File and navigate to /sys/class/net/ and check if a folder called rmnet_data0 exists? If yes, please navigate down and select file /sys/class/net/rmnet_data0/statistics/rx_bytes.
Execute the action followed by condition Debug Dialog and check if variable file_text contains a value that matches your expectations of mobile received traffic. Is this procedure working on your device?

Regards,
Martin

[TraianC]

Hi Martin,

In /sys/class/net I have:
dummy0
Io
p2p0
rmnet_smux0
rmnet_smux1
rmnet_usb0
rmnet_usb1
rmnet_usb2
sit0
wlan0

I tried rmnet_smux0/statistics/rx_bytes but the file_text variable contains 0.
I tried each folder and it looks that the information is stored in rmnet_usb0/statistics/rx_bytes

What do you think?

Regards,
Traian

[Martin]

Hi,

Hmm, I would have expected that rmnet_usb0 is just used when tethering over usb. Are you tethering?
If the number in the text file looks correct, you could use the Init Variable Text File as a workaround, however I can't add this workaround to Automagic since it will most likely not be the correct file for other devices.

Regards,
Martin

[TraianC]

Hi Martin,
I'm not tethering. The value seems right.
Meanwhile I've managed to solve the issue by counting each mobile session. I count the amount of data transferred when the phone is connected to mobile data network and I disregard the data transferred when the phone is connected to WiFi. I'm testing now to see if this has an important impact on battery drain.
Normally Active Network change trigger that I'm using should not be battery hungry.
What do you think?

Regards,
Traian

[Martin]

Hi,

I guess that this should not use much battery, but it's better to test it and see if Automagic starts to bubble up in the battery usage settings page.
I hope that the cause of this issue is fixed in an Android update. It's nearly impossible to find a workaround that's working on all devices.

Regards,
Martin

[TraianC]

Until now I didn't noticed significant battery drain, so I'll stick to this "workaround".
Thanks again Martin!