Nokia – alarms and notifications

Source: Don’t kill my app

Explanation

GOOD NEWS: HMD Global claims to disable Evenwell powersaving apps on all devices running Android Pie or newer.
NOT SO GOOD NEWS: DuraSpeed remains.

HMD Global/Nokia was the main reason this website came to exist. They had the most aggressive app killers preinstalled on their phones.

There were three different app killing mechanisms:

  • com.evenwell.powersaving.g3 on Android Pie for most Nokia phones – this one has been disabled since 8/2019 on devices running Pie or greater
  • com.evenwell.emm on Android Go (Oreo?) for Nokia 1 – probably still in the wild since HMD only disabled Evenwell apps for Pie or greater
  • DuraSpeed on Android Pie (build 00WW_3_180) for the US Nokia 3.1 (TA-1049, TA-1063) and Nokia 5.1 – this one is still in the wild

Most Nokia phones (Power saver AKA com.evenwell.powersaving.g3)

The Evenwell Power saver *(com.evenwell.powersaving.g3)* has been disabled by HMD Global for devices running Pie or greater as of 8/2019.

Nokia 1 (com.evenwell.emm)

On Nokia 1 there is an alternative package that works very similar to what the com.evenwell.powersaving.g3 package is doing on the higher end models.

Nokia 3.1 and 5.1 (DuraSpeed)

On Mediatek-based devices, HMD has baked in DuraSpeed as a system service. There is no user-facing control, or whitelist; this Mediatek-developed task killer terminates all background apps without prejudice.

DuraSpeed can be disabled through the global settings store, but this is a protected area of Android that can only be manipulated through adb, or an app that has been granted the WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS permission (which must also be done with adb). Additionally, the setting does not survive a reboot. Users can fix their devices themselves using an automation app (see “Solution for users”), or apps can request the WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS permission and then cycle the flag on startup to kill DuraSpeed. Syncthing-Fork is one app that has taken this approach.

Unfortunately, there are some reports that even this fix does not work.

Solution

Most Nokia phones (Power saver AKA com.evenwell.powersaving.g3)

To fix this issue, please do the following:

  • Go to Phone settings > Apps > See all apps.
  • Tap on the right top corner menu > Show system.
  • Find Power saver app in the list, select it and Force close. It will remain stopped for a while, but will restart itself eventually.

From now on, background apps should work normally and use the standard Android battery optimizations.

Still 3rd party alarm clocks or any task scheduling of foreground tasks at a particular time won’t work. We do not have any solution for this at the moment UPDATE: in our preliminary tests it seems that force stopping or uninstalling the Power saver app also fixes alarms and starting of foreground services, until the Power saver restarts.

Alternative solution for tech-savvy users:

Most Nokia models

The Evenwell Power saver *(com.evenwell.powersaving.g3)* has been disabled by HMD Global for devices running Pie or greater as of 8/2019.

Disable the com.evenwell.powersaving.g3 package via the following adb commands:

adb shell
pm disable-user com.evenwell.powersaving.g3

Nokia 1 (Android Go)

Disable the com.evenwell.emm package via the following adb commands:

adb shell
pm disable-user com.evenwell.emm

Nokia 3.1 and 5.1

Regrettably, HMD did not include any sort of Settings switch to control DuraSpeed’s operation. And since the task killer is a system service and not an app, it cannot simply be uninstalled. Fortunately, DuraSpeed does have a hidden kill switch: It watches the setting.duraspeed.enabled setting and will stop itself when the flag is set to any value that does not equal 1. Once DuraSpeed stops itself, the phone is cured and all background apps will function normally. However, this workaround does not stick across reboots, so the flag has to be cycled at every boot using an automation app like MacroDroid.

First, use adb to grant MacroDroid (or your choice of automation app) the ability to write to the global settings store:

adb shell pm grant com.arlosoft.macrodroid android.permission.WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS

Then create a task, triggered at Device Boot, that performs the following:

  1. System Setting: type Global, name setting.duraspeed.enabled, value 2
  2. System Setting: type Global, name setting.duraspeed.enabled, value0

MacroDroid example task

Tasker example task

Run this task and verify there are no errors. If all is well, then DuraSpeed will be immediately disabled, and it will also be disabled on reboot.