IssueTracker

Upgrade was never offered. I was offered directly Android 16. I can't
install Android 16 as I want to leave beta.

<buganizer-system@google.com> schrieb am Do., 27. Feb. 2025, 08:55:

Just want to add, same situation as yours, only it's been happening since December.
After upgrading to stable the issue persists.

Same here on leaked android 2.2

HTC desire 2.1-update 1 some trouble

Ok after a little testing i have noted the following (for me):

* this only seems to occur on startup (it doesnt seem to occur if the phone has been on continuosly)

* this only seems to occur when there are photos on the SD card ( i removed the photos from the SD card, and restarted many times over a few days and this didnt occur - as soon as i took photos with the camera and restarted the next time, this error occured)

based on reading elsewhere im guessing this has to do with a corrupted thumbnail, or an incorrectly read image file or thumbnail file

(HTC Desire > Android 2.1 update 1)

I had the same problem on my HTC Desire.

Also i have a lot of pics and music on my sd card. And i have Nimbuzz installed.

I solved the problem by deactivating the auto start feature of Nimbuzz. When i start nimbuzz manually
after some time the phone is running, i don't have this problem.

But i can't say for sure if it is really Nimbuzz, maybe just a coincidence.

Do you all maybe have Nimbuzz running in autostart mode?

As chance would have it I also have nimbuzz installed and on auto start mode. I never really considered it as its one of the first things that I installed on my phone.
Normally I wouldn't have considered it, but then again it would use the media server to some extent. And this is way to big a coincidence to not be related

I'll disable auto start on nimbuzz and let you know how it goes.

Thanks a lot rivalcrusader

I had this issue today on my Motorola Droid running android 2.1.  After A YouTube video failed to play, media center ran for about 3hours, dragging my battery down from full to 30%. The battery use page listed mediacenter as running the CPU for a full 3 hours, using 75% of the battery.  When i noticed it, I used advanced task killer to kill all Lapps which stopped mediaserver.

I had the same exact problem with cpu being maxed out to 100% from startup. I also had numbuzz autostarting. When i disabled that, rebooted and cpu usage is back to normal. not sure if it's just temporary.. but for now i know that my mobile has lost it's ability to warm my coffee :-D

HTC Desire with android 2.1

I quote rivalcrusader, the same problem occured for me and checking out the Nimbuzz autostart option gave me back my brisk smartphone ;-)

HTC Desire with android 2.1

I do confirm the Autostart issue with Nimbuzz. As soon as I disabled the Autostart option in Nimbuzz, mediaserver stopped draining my CPU and battery. Manual start of Numbuzz doesn't cause it to happen.

HTC Desire with android 2.1

Started happening on my HTC Desire after I've installed Nimbuzz, when the issue between Fring and Skype occured. I don't have Nimbuzz in autorun, yet the problem still occurs after I use it for a few hours. Killing Nimbuzz, doesn't stop mediaserver from going mad, ofcourse.

It seems like mediaserver will be checking the whole microsd card every startup. I have to leave my phone for 5+mins to let the mediaserver do its job before I can use the phone. The more files u have in ur microsd, the more time it used.

[Comment deleted]

I've tested and rebooted my phone many times, searched through the net and here are some of my thoughts.

The 100% CPU usage, pretty much happens every time I begin aggressively scrolling my contact list in Nimbuzz up and down. Then, I've found a bug discussion where the 'mediaserver' is talked about over an endless loop problem, which occurs on reading corrupt media files (http://lists.helixcommunity.org/pipermail/porting-android/2010-April/000621.html).
So my guess is that Nibuzz tries to do some stuff with the images it loads on start up while initializing the contact list, which in turn makes the 'mediaserver' process gets not fully loaded (corrupt) images and the fun begins.

Although it contradicts with some people who have Nimbuzz loading on startup at background, but these are my five cents into the piggy and I hope it will help someone or, perhaps, even speed up the patch for it.

Same issue. When unmount SDCARD, the issue is gone. Clear all thumbnails and strange files on my SD is helped. there is a suspicion that bad file is video.swf (~4Kbyte) at the root of SD card

It's not help. Format SD card..

Hi,

Format SD Card helps.

--> It seems that very many multimedia files will push the mediaserver cpu usage up to 100%.

--> Video recording was even not possible

--> After formating SD Card everything works fine again.
Phone: HTC Desire Android 2.2

Bad file is reason of this issue. In my case it was video on SD-card. It was corrupted.

I had this issue twice.

Both times it was caused by corrupted image files in the DCIM folder of the sdcard.
It makes the process /system/bin/mediaserver use 90+ % of the CPU

Same here.
The first time was because a the camera app crash during a video recording (so a corrupt video was generated).
Now it is because of some (or a lot) of files from NDrive

hum, just deleted a nimbuzz jpeg file and it fixed!

I have also verified that the task called “Mediaserver” only appears in the Battery Manager Usage Statistics after I have been listening to music (a simple music player, no streaming content), watch YouTube videos (streaming), or other related media.

It seems to drain my battery most after I have stopped playing the music or watching videos – even for a short while.  I do not leave applications running in the background either – I stop and exit them, and yet the Battery Manager Usage Statistics will register that Mediaserver has consumed by battery up to 80% within a few hours later.

Phone: Droid X
Android Version: 2.2

I am having the same problem, If I remove the sd card it desapears. My battery expectancy is less than 8 hours. 3-4 if I use the phone (nexus one).

It sucks. Thinking about changing the phone..

Hey it happens to me too!

I have a motorola spice xt300 with android 2.1 update1, my sd card has a lot of images, sounds and videos from another taken from another mobile phone.

Every thing goes well until I decide to open the image gallery, it appears to try to index the image tree and stuck > ~70% of cpu load.

I'll try to remove media and format the SD to see what happens.
It just occurs if I load the gallery application.

Does any one has a fix for this strange behaviour?

I am having this issue also, and after a lot of thought I am thinking it may have something to do with what a few users said: "based on reading elsewhere im guessing this has to do with a corrupted thumbnail, or an incorrectly read image file or thumbnail file"

I may be responsible, but when I was syncing with doubletwist it was trying to reencode music files, so I canceled because I didn't have time to finish. Since then(yesterday) I have noticed that some of the music is cut off early, and some of the thumbs are wrong, so maybe it has to do with corrupted thumbs or music files? I will redo the sync properly later and let someone know if this corrects the issue.

It may not be caused by the canceling of the sync, but it seems to be correlated at least unless I am missing something.

Please describe the problem in detail. Be sure to include:
- Steps to reproduce the problem.
It hasn't stopped since the issue first started regardless of restarts and killing apps, and uninstalling new apps

My phone carrier: Tmobile in USA

- What happened.
"mediaserver" is using a large amount of processor draining the battery very fast.

- What you think the correct behavior should be.
If there was a way to find out what apps could be using the "mediaserver" system process so much(or all system processes) without a third party app.(I made this suggestion in a different part of the google project just now)

Don't forget to mention which device you have, and which version of Android
is installed on it. (Find it under Home > Menu > Settings > About phone.)
SGH-T959 - Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant - unofficial rom using official 2.2 released 2.2 firmware. Kernel version 2.6.32.9 - Rom Bionix V by team whisky

I have been noticing this problem as well for the past few months.  I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what is causing it.  I agree with other commenters that this does seem to have something to do with corrupted media files, but I can't tell for sure.

I have tried reformatting my SD card, removing pictures, but this did not help.

For me, it seems to be connected to Yahoo Messenger.  I rarely have the issue unless I am using Yahoo Messenger.  But I cannot pin the exact cause on it.  Yahoo Messenger has a sync option to sync your contacts with your gmail contacts, I have turned that off, to no avail.

Please describe the problem in detail. Be sure to include:

Steps to reproduce the problem:
It hasn't stopped regardless of restarts and killing apps, and uninstalling apps.  As I said prior, I suspect it has something to do with Yahoo Messenger.

What happened:
"Mediaserver" is using a large amount of processor draining the battery very fast and slowing the responsiveness of the phone to a crawl.

What you think the correct behavior should be:
Not having this process spin out of control.  I agree with the prior poster that if there was a way to find out what apps could be using the "mediaserver" system process it would help greatly to debug the problem.

Version of Android:
2.2.1

Phone model:
Droid X

Carrier:
Verizon USA

Comment #31 seems to have the same common link to this issue as I do.  I also have a Motorola Droid X (DX). The process "mediaserver" will constantly consume 80%-100% cpu processes and the device response time is greatly reduced.  I can only reproduce this when I am in the Yahoo Messenger (YM) app. It only happens sometimes but when it does happen it is always after receiving an instant message form within the YM app.

It's strange because there are other times when a process may take 80+% of the clock cycles but the device response time is only slightly reduced.  When I stated that the response time is greatly reduced I mean it takes 3-7 seconds before it responds to my input. Android OS should manage this process just like all the other ones and keep everything running smoothly.

This happened maybe 65% of the time on my first DX when using the YM app exactly as is has on this new DX.  Today was the first time it happened on this DX.  A reboot seems to have corrected the problem for now. As I type this I have been using YM heavily for an hour and have not been able to reproduce the about stated issue.

My device is a Droid X running Android 2.2.1.

Motorola Milestone 2.1
Same problem. Rook a backup and formatted the sd card. Couldnt find way to identify the rogue file.
Hoping it would work this time.

Fixed for me when HTC Desire was updated to 2.2.

This is in regards to Comment #31 and #32.

I also have a DX, and media server is taking 75% of my battery life, and i hardly do anything except carry the phone on standby mode. You are both correct, I think this is related to Yahoo Messenger. I was having a response time of 3-7 seconds (i.e. keyboard input, scrolling, etc). I just clear the cache, and uninstall Yahoo Messenger, and now operation is back to normal. I'm gonna try an alternative IM (like ebuddy or similiar) and see if that causes the same problems.

Thanks for sharing the culprit!

I fixed this issue on my Droid Incredible recently, but the culprit wasn't Yahoo Messenger for me, as it was for some in this thread.

My issue was very reliably caused by the Gallery application. Apparently I had some sort of corrupted video file on my SD card that Android was trying to index a thumbnail for. After the Gallery app was opened, system/bin/mediaserver would be taking up nearly 100% of my CPU time according to OSMonitor. A reboot would fix the issue temporarily, but reopening Gallery caused the issue all over again. Killing the mediaserver process was fruitless.

To permanently fix the issue, I used the tips found on this page http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/how-to-prevent-a-directory-from-being-scanned-by-android-gallery/ to stop Android from scanning directories one by one on my SD card until I found the offending directory with the apparently corrupt media file. The tips on that page show easy ways to use .nomedia files to tell Android to stop scanning those directories for media.

Hope this helps!

I have a Desire running 2.2 and this happened to me because of a corrupt video file. Deleting the file solved the problem, though finding it was a mission.

It was extremely lucky that I came across this issue, however, as my first instinct was that I had a hardware fault (my battery only lasting a few hours instead of a day and a half) and needed to take the phone back.

I really love Android and so this disappoints me. It is things like these that make it hard to recommend an Android to somebody who isn't a techie. Why can't Mediaserver simply mark a file as a problem, if it can't scan it in a few seconds, and never scan it again?

I am a Gnu/Linux user and have added ".nomedia" files into all my folders that aren't "Music" or "Videos", but this would be very difficult in Windows--and I struggle to see why users should have to when this:
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/data-storage.html#filesExternal
says that only the specified folders are scanned and shared (this clearly isn't the case on my phone).

Does this still happen on 3.1 with its MTP approach to file transfer? My guess is that Android still has to scan files in case one is added direct to the SD card when it is not in the phone--or are files ignored unless they are added through MTP?

why can we not disable the media server process.
I have tried the .nomedia file in directories containing media - though now I just have it in the root of my sd card, and it does work - until you start any media related program - then it will chew battery until you re boot the phone.

scanning my files etc is not what I want - programs should allow me to opt in , not have as their default setting something that is as invasive as mediaserver scanning - I am quite capable of pointing the program at the folder/file I wish it to open - I have been through winamp etc , turning off all options that I think will have any remote chance that it will scan my files or attempt to access over the network.

why is this rubbish process so ingrained in Android

yes corrupted video files also causing a big problem for me also.

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wow, wow. A corrupted thumbnail/album art thriggered the staggering load on my phone... I recently loaded Tool - Lateralus onto my phone, which was in flac w/o album art. Then I used Mediamonkey to add album art to it. I've never used Mediamonkey to do that before, and that is likely what caused the issue, some bad IE3 values added perhaps.
PS thanks for pointing out that a corruped thumbnail could be the issue!

I get this too on my Motorola Defy with Android 2.3.4 build 4.5.1-134_DFP-10.  Very annoying.

I get this too on my LG P500 with Android 2.3.3 v20C,D,E. Fixed error replaced firmware on 2.2.1 or CM.

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Solving the problem lies in the options build.prop
must be changed:
---
media.stagefright.enable-player = true
---
to:
---
media.stagefright.enable-player = false
---
If this option is not in the file, it is necessary to add.

All the options that people have mentioned, are not the problem (for me).. I still have this issue after fixing all these potential problems..


-Android 2.3.5 with HTC Sense 3.5

glennu, is your cpu load peaking from the very start after booting or do you launch video/music player, etc. and then it appears?

Wife's Droid Razr has this issue, but mine does not. Ran mp3val on her collection that is on her SD card (the internal one, not the actual MicroSD card). Came back with problems on a number of files, fixed most of them, but a few couldn't be fixed. Removed the files that couldn't be "fixed". Seemed to have fixed the problem, then yesterday the same issue came back with Media Server staying open. I rescanned the "clean" files on her SD card, and different ones came back with issues, ones that didn't appear to be bad previously (Mostly header issues dealing with VBR).

Froze Play Music with Titanium Backup, phone no longer gets hot, and battery life has greatly improved.

besides media server remaining open, is Play Music corrupting my wifes music, and thus causing the media server issue?

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I removed external SD card and my problem was gone.
In that SD card was about 6 GB photos and videos. File format: NTFS

SD Card: Lexar High-speed 8GB MicroSD [HC]
Phone: Samsung galaxy S2
Android: 4.0.3 l9100XXLPQ
3.0.15-l9100XXLPQ-CL223505

Media server was using about 31% of battery.

Hi,

Same problem here. Mediaserver gets 48-31% of my battery, and most of my CPU proccess making my phone very laggy. I Have an Xperia Neo V with ICS stock. I tried to format SD, creating .nomedia in each directory, clean reinstall ICS... problem always come back again.
It usually start when i use the Music player. I don´t have this problem on GingerBread with exactly the same files on the SDcard. Doný know wat´s wrong with mediaserver..

same issue (see attached screenshots). xperia mini with official android 4.0.4 rom. i have a 32 gb microsd card with  ~3 gb of music on it.

Is there a known way to identify a corrupt file guys?

Does anybody have a broken file that triggers the problem I can test with ? Or specific instructions on how to 'break'  a file or video ?
I want to have a look and see what I can do.

"broken" mp3

I download the 02_Keda_Kid-Arcane.mp3 from Comment58 and try to play it in my phone, but can't reproduce the mediaserver issue, maybe this is not the cause on my phone.

Version of Android:
2.3.5

Kernel version:
2.6.38.6-perf

I tried this mp3 too, and I don't see the problem on ICS, does anybody have a confirmed broken media file which reproduces the mediaserver issue ?

 

With this mp3 my phone hangs after startup, mediaserver process eats CPU.
Sony[Ericsson] Xperia Arc (LT15i), android 4.0.4, core 2.6.32.9-perf, build 4.1.B.0.431.

Ok, another mp3. I can't open this mp3 in MixZing player (because of embedded image?). Actually I can but GUI freeses. My friend has trouble with uploading this mp3 to phone - mediaserver eats CPU again. He has Xperia S, phone connected in media transfer mode/MTP.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/74768062/Default%20-%20love%20is%20so%20good.mp3

I had a similar issue with my stock Galaxy Nexus (GSM) running 4.1.1. This happened to me twice - once it was the Mediaserver process that kept draining the battery. I had to do a factory reset to clear it.

A few months went by and the second time it occurred it was the Media process, except this time it would drain the battery for several hours and then suddenly stop.

For me, the upgrade to 4.1 (Galaxy Nexus maguro/yakju) went fine, and I was delighted with Jelly Bean. After the upgrade to 4.1.1 though, the device was suddenly slower than it had ever been, and the battery lasted max 8-10h without being used at all (it just wasn't sleeping). Tracked down the issue by using 'show CPU usage' and found that process.android.media was running at all times.

I deleted every media file I could find on the device, but nothing worked. A factory reset worked though, and the device has been perfect since.

Long story short - this issue has been happening since 1.x, and it's still a problem even in 4.1.1.

Same issue on my Sony xperia Acro S (Stock). I have 32 Gb sd card  full of media files...
Do anyone have any solution?

[Comment deleted]

Having the same issue with Verizon Galaxy Nexus on 4.1.1

After a reboot, Android Media Processes run at about 47% CPU power, for as long as over an hour. This occurs on occasion throughout the day, even without a reboot. It's always a different media process that is taxing my phone at a given time, and it's either Media Storage, Downloads, Download Manager, or DRM Protected Content Storage.

I have less than 300 media files in my phone, consisting of photos,videos,  and audio. I couldn't find a corrupted file among any of them either.

It's become quite the battery hog, so a solution to this would be nice.

After the upgrade to Androyd 4.1.1 on my Samsung galaxy S 3 Mediaserver gets 47-31% of my battery. Work Time of my smartphone halved. Fix this problem please.

Same issue 36903753.1.2 on Nexus S.
Really surprised that this bug is 2 years old.

I just had this issue on my new Nexus 4.... killed my battery yesterday. I can't believe this dates back to 2010.

This is caused by corrupt media files on your SD card that are causing errors for the mediaserver process. I would try to find them and delete them.

For me this issue starts early in the morning when I get to work. Within 1 hour, my battery would be dead. I am guessing it might be caused by Bluetooth connection. I play songs directly from my phone on my car speakers. I tried .nomedia file. It removed the songs in the folder from the library. That's not a good solution.

This issue should be high priority for developers as it affects lots of people.

I have Samsung S3 with Jellybean 4.1.1 This issue occurred when I had ICS as well.

It was mentioned that % and _ within filenames could be a problem. I
downloaded an app called File Tools which allows batch file name changes
(It has a very easy-to-use find and replace feature). Since removing these
characters from several of my files, it seems that the media scanning time
is greatly reduced.

I am runnning a rooted Google Galaxy Nexus 3, and even tho I have barely used my phone the last few dasys.. and i have the mediaserver at about 30% cpu used without even ever having played a single song...

I did find and replace all underscore('_') in file names and the issue didn't occur. I didn't have any % sign.

but hey. camera names new shots with underscores by default...

Same mediaserver issue on my LG OG E970 running 4.0.4.  I just noticed it after reformatting my SD card to Fat32.  Loaded my music and photos back onto the card after the format.  Also used PlayerPro to add album art the day before I reformated the card.  Don't know if that's a contributing factor.

I've got over 3000 mp3s and several hundred photos on this card.  Is there an easy way to find corrupted files?

I reported earlier that the issue didn't come back because I replaced underscore '_'. The problem occurred again today. I haven't added any new songs. Must be something else.

I agree. I originally thought it helped to replace these characters but this does not help as much as I thought at first (or at all).

Also surprised that this issue has not been fixed for such long time.

The Mediaserver holds partial wakelock on the CPU and prevents the CPU from going to deep sleep. This may be caused by apps that fails to close the media device. However, this should still be considered a system bug.

Killing "Media" in cached processes helped once, but later it came back in battery statistics after viewing a video with stock browser and cannot be seen in running/cached process list.

Someone told me that this problem is caused by non-latin file names, but the issue still exists after I change all files into English. In fact I (not a coder) doubt whether Mediaserver is related to media scanner.

Using 4.1.2 on Samsung GT-i9000.

In my note 2 mediaserver issue was caused by viber.
I unistalled viber and restarted phone and now the problem is solved!

It's random. I don't have Viber.  This issue has something to do with
internal processing of media files. I thought is was caused by Bluetooth
connectivity.

there is a discussion on Google+ which may help with this issue. I am good now that I'm on 4.2.2 but I thought it might help others. Search for the name Koushik Dutta. He figured something out by looking at the source code. Also the comments to the post might help also. Good luck.

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