Android Subsonic still using 3G when phone is set to WiFi

[JulesG]

On my Android Nexus One, when streaming using WiFi, the phone seems to be using 3G at the same time at the rate of about 50MB/hour. Has anybody experienced that and is there a way to avoid that ?

Of course, I could try disabling 3G in the setup but there must be a better way... I won't be able to test it before Dec. 15 because my last music streaming session got me to 90% of my internet use limit !

[alphawave7]

I think it's a bug in your phone, not subsonic (I haven't seen this on my N1). You could try Airplane Mode, then enable WiFi (effectively turning off 2G/3G), and see if that appears to 'force' SS back to Wifi. Also try using a taskiller to kill off all background apps, and watch your throughput while running SS. I think it's another rogue app causing this.

[alphawave7]

BTW, one of the reasons I have not encountered this may be that I created another server called 'Home' in the android app, which has my local lan address, instead of my subsonic.org address? Of course, I manually assigned IP's throughout, so I'm not at dhcp's mercy wrt locations.

[JulesG]

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated.

I did some quick tests and some 3G activity is generated even if the phone is set (and stay set) to WiFi. I tried to find an app that would measure Network access by App but couldn't find any.

Killing every App before using SS may very well prevent this but I don't have enough data allocation left for this month to test it.

I solved the problem by using this setup:
Wireless & Network Settings / Mobile Networks / Disable Data Enable

Of course, I would rather find the source of the problem.

2010.12.18 See update below.

[alexhaj]

so is this a problem with subsonic app?? If it is then its pretty major.

[GJ51]

I'm pretty sure this would be a phone issue.

On my EVO I have power widgets on my home screen for turning all the radios on and off. Turning off 3G, WiFi, 4G, GPS, and bluetooth until I need them extends my battery life to 3 or 4 days on the standard battery. I can still get text msgs and phone calls. I would think similar options should be available for most Android phones.

I'don't know if having wifi and 3g on at the same time uses any 3g or not, but I can't imagine having SS on my phone without unlimited download, it's just too addicting. I drove 1000 mi. last week listening to SS the whole way. Just awesome. Of course I also had navigation active and recieved a few calls along the way, all without missing a beat, except for one stretch in the PA hills wher the 3g signal was weak. I just switch to Offline mode for a while until I got a better signal.

Not to mention listening to local radio in my hometown with Tune-In Radio.

SS just is such a killer app that it's worth moving to an unlimited data plan just for SS use.

Many users here have been kind enough to extend logon priviledges for me to their sites. I'll never be able to listen to all the comercial free, high quality music that's been made available to me if I listen 24/7 for the rest of my life.

Forgive me for being a "fanboy", as I have recently been accused, but I've been building systems since 1983, and I find SS to be a truly breakthrough app, a game changer. I'll be cancelling my XM subscription at the end of the month due to the functionality I'm getting with SS and Internet radio.

[JulesG]

Here is an update to this problem.

It seems that the default Android behavior is this: If you have WiFi on and the screen saver comes on, WiFi shuts off and the phone goes back to 3G.

In theory, this behavior can be corrected in the phone Parameters config:
Wireless & Networks > WiFi Settings > Menu Button > Advanced > WiFi Sleep Policy > Never. This way, WiFi should never turn off.

An additional safety measure is to disable Data in the Parameters configuration when listening to Subsonic to make sure that the phone won't switch to 3G:
Wireless & Networks > Mobile Networks < Data Enabled (turn off).

On my phone, these 2 config changes effectively prevent my phone from switching to 3G. Instead, it goes to sleep after a while and Subsonic stops playing. If I turn the phone back ON from sleeping, Subsonic instantly resumes playing. Not very handy, but definitely much better than switching to 3G, specially if you fell asleep and wake up in the morning having spent 685MB of 3G data...

On my Nexus One, when listening to Subsonic over WiFi, the phone goes to sleep and WiFi turns off even if the parameter is switched to NEVER Turn Off as shown above. This happens after a random number of songs, sometimes short, sometimes quite long.

Any solution ?

[alphawave7]

I seem to recall I had this issue when beta testing Slacker's Android app, but the problem eventually resolved itself somehow. Try setting Nexus to airplane mode (all wireless off) then enable only wifi. Does the problem persist?