Can Android mediaserver be uninstalled?

Yesterday (Sept 7 2017) my phone got hot, and battery life went from 30 hours to 5. The "Battery status" screen points to Android mediaserver as the culprit. I've looked at the forums on androidcentral, and none of those suggestions fit --
* I use voice telephone, email, text, contacts, calendar, and a little bit of browser, and only really utilitarian apps (I'm a grown up, I use my phone for business (it's a blackberry!). I do not do kid stuff (games, entertainment, etc). I don't do "media" on this phone.
* I have NEVER put an SD card in this phone (I don't think I even own one)
* I have no media stored on this phone (I don't have anything stored on the phone except stuff like the cached copies of gmail emails and contacts).
* I do not view media on this phone -- I think the most "media" think I've done in the last 48 hours is reading some articles on the NewYorker web site. I don't even think I did anything as "media" as CNN or YouTube.

I now know what mediaserver does, and I will never ever use it (at least not intentionally). I would be perfectly happy to remove it from my phone. But in Settings Gear > Apps it's not in the list.

How do I make it stop draining battery? Preferably permanently? I would be 100% content to remove it -- even 200% gleeful to get rid of a piece of crapware that is just causing me problems.

Incidentally, at the same time, a bunch of ringtones I had for specific friends reset to the default ringtone. That might be coincidental, it might be a symptom.

Thanks

David

Originally Posted by BostonBowTie

I now know what mediaserver does, and I will never ever use it

Originally Posted by BostonBowTie

Incidentally, at the same time, a bunch of ringtones I had for specific friends reset to the default ringtone.

I don't think you know what Mediaserver is and what it does if you think you're never going to use it. Even your ringtones use it. And no, you can't remove it. As for fixing your battery drain, usually, media server related battery drain is caused by an app, however, tracking down which app is hard as it all gets lumped into mediaserver. You can poke around for the next few days enabling/disabling apps and seeing if it improves or you can just the arguably easy way out, reset your device and start fresh. That said, there's still a good chance if it's app related that it might happen again even after all that, especially if it's a bug in the app that needs to be fixed which is causing mediaserver to go nutty.

Any moron can misquote or reframe a question, and answer the misquoted or reframed but irrelevant question. I included the phrase "(at least not intentionally)" You misquoted me by leaving that off. Please do not be a moron.

Please answer the question. If I lose some functionality (ringtones), that's fine -- I want reliability, not features.

By the way, I have no objection to having my question reframed so that I get a *relevant* and *helpful* answer (how to stop the battery drain for a "feature" that I will never (intentionally) use).

I object to being misquoted to set up a snarky and irrelevant answer.

If you tell me what the tradeoff is for getting my battery life back after uninstalling or otherwise permanently disabling mediaserver, but leave me the choice as to whether I care or not, that's a helpful answer. If I'm left with only one ringtone for all callers, that's a GREAT tradeoff for me.

Originally Posted by BostonBowTie

By the way, I have no objection to having my question reframed so that I get a *relevant* and *helpful* answer (how to stop the battery drain for a "feature" that I will never (intentionally) use).

I object to being misquoted to set up a snarky and irrelevant answer.

If you tell me what the tradeoff is for getting my battery life back after uninstalling or otherwise permanently disabling mediaserver, but leave me the choice as to whether I care or not, that's a helpful answer. If I'm left with only one ringtone for all callers, that's a GREAT tradeoff for me.

Uh. I don't think he was being snarky. He was trying to explain that mediaserver is a core OS component for all media, including all sounds such as ringtones, and that, while mediaserver looks like the culprit, it much more likely that another app accessing mediaserver is responsible for the battery drain you experienced. He also explained pretty clearly that it might be difficult to identify the root cause and that, if it's an app bug, only identifying and deleting, or waiting for an update, might fix the problem

Posted with my trusty Z10

Yeah. I thought the answer was spot on too.

Just because it was not what you wanted to read (it's all the mediaserver's fault so let's dump it) doesn't make it any less relevant.

bb10adopter111's answer is helpful.

But it leads to even more confusion. I have only six non-factory apps installed, and I barely use them. I hadn't used any of them for a couple days when the problem kicked itself off yesterday afternoon. (If you're catching on that I have very little tolerance for buggy or surprising software, and avoid anything that introduces bugs or surprises, you've got me down. I used to be a compiler writer and operating systems engineer -- in the 1980s and 1990s, those were two zero-tolerance areas. I really want a 2008 era Blackberry -- the necessaries that are so simple that they're 100% reliable, no crapware -- but "like new" ones aren't available any more.) So there isn't a lot to enable/disable.

I guess the shortest path is the hard reset.

Originally Posted by BostonBowTie

bb10adopter111's answer is helpful.

But it leads to even more confusion. I have only six non-factory apps installed, and I barely use them. I hadn't used any of them for a couple days when the problem kicked itself off yesterday afternoon. (If you're catching on that I have very little tolerance for buggy or surprising software, and avoid anything that introduces bugs or surprises, you've got me down. I used to be a compiler writer and operating systems engineer -- in the 1980s and 1990s, those were two zero-tolerance areas. I really want a 2008 era Blackberry -- the necessaries that are so simple that they're 100% reliable, no crapware -- but "like new" ones aren't available any more.) So there isn't a lot to enable/disable.

I guess the shortest path is the hard reset.

You might be very happy with a BB10 phone. If you don't want the 3rd party apps, the core functionality is fantastic, and, frankly, superior to the old BBOS in many ways.

Posted with my trusty Z10

Originally Posted by BostonBowTie

Any moron can misquote or reframe a question, and answer the misquoted or reframed but irrelevant question. I included the phrase "(at least not intentionally)" You misquoted me by leaving that off. Please do not be a moron.

Please answer the question. If I lose some functionality (ringtones), that's fine -- I want reliability, not features.

Wow. People will be clamouring to help you after this post. The editor-in-chief of Crackberry himself tried to answer your question, and this is your response?

Yeah, I was very conflicted between Priv and Passport.

At least the Priv keyboard hides and can't do surprising things in my pocket, especially in the leather case that shuts off the touchscreen when it's closed. So that was a no-brainer among today's imperfect solutions.

(I am a lawyer -- I replaced my iPhone within a day after it placed a butt dial to opposing counsel. My FIRST concern in a phone is making sure that that CANNOT happen. I really hate touch screens, gesture keyboards, anything that creates surprises.)

Try disabling autoupdate on the playstore. Also disable background data for apps that you deem unnecessary for your particular use.

Originally Posted by BostonBowTie

Yeah, I was very conflicted between Priv and Passport.

At least the Priv keyboard hides and can't do surprising things in my pocket, especially in the leather case that shuts off the touchscreen when it's closed. So that was a no-brainer among today's imperfect solutions.

(I am a lawyer -- I replaced my iPhone within a day after it placed a butt dial to opposing counsel. My FIRST concern in a phone is making sure that that CANNOT happen. I really hate touch screens, gesture keyboards, anything that creates surprises.)

The only number a properly locked phone can call is 911.

Posted with my trusty Z10

Curiouser and curiouser. I did a "normal" reboot (turn off, turn on), and it seems to be fixed.

Thanks all.

Great. Glad it's resolves, and I hope it doesn't recur. If it does, however, please try not to take out your frustrations on the folks around here who try to provide help and guidance.

Posted with my trusty Z10

of course that's true.

But I and many of my friends have frequent butt dials. In any other field, if an object induces "pilot error" this frequently, we say it's a badly designed device. Human factors engineering is still engineering!

The two things I like best about my Blackberry Priv are the physical keyboard and the "smart case" that <i><b>ensures</i></b> that the phone is "properly locked!" It doesn't stop all of the surprises that arise from unintentional touches of the touch screen, but it sure cuts them down.

Who told you games are only for kids ?

Originally Posted by BostonBowTie

(I am a lawyer -- I replaced my iPhone within a day after it placed a butt dial to opposing counsel. My FIRST concern in a phone is making sure that that CANNOT happen. I really hate touch screens, gesture keyboards, anything that creates surprises.)

("Reframed" intentionally)

Try this as next phone:

Western Electric (the AT&T subsidiary that made "stuff") designed internal system switches with a 40-year lifetime. That was engineering. Decide what's essential, do it well, make it reliable. And only when you can promise that, then add gee-gaws that a few people might want, but don't let the gee-gaws get in the way of the core function.

Originally Posted by BostonBowTie

Western Electric (the AT&T subsidiary that made "stuff") designed internal system switches with a 40-year lifetime. That was engineering. Decide what's essential, do it well, make it reliable. And only when you can promise that, then add gee-gaws that a few people might want, but don't let the gee-gaws get in the way of the core function.

So is mediaserver a gee gaw?

Posted via CB10

Well in fact mediaserver and it's libs are flawed awfully and there was no monthly secPatch in the last year since stagefright bug Google did not patch holes in it.

But it's nevertheless essential to the system and it's said it's less vulnerable in 7.x++ http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-...security-flaw/