The battery drain and the partial wake locks that keep my phone awake when I turn off push sync and go back to an hourly pull of updated tasks...

I can confirm this behaviour. I actually emailed the support team about this a few days ago. Yesterday my phone didn't go to sleep all day because RTM held a partial wake lock for 12 hours.

From playing around with it, the problem seems to occur if I push the power button to go into standby mode while the RTM sync icon is showing in the task bar. I am currently working round the problem by letting the sync finish before I manually put the phone into standby mode.

The initial response I received from support didn't really address the issue. I haven't had a chance to reply to it yet, but will hopefully do so tonight. I have taken some screenshots of the Spare Parts app showing the partial wake lock usage.

Glad to hear it's not just me that has experienced this! This is definitely an annoying bug in an otherwise excellent application.

Incidentally, with my manual workaround I have so far avoided the problem today. Consequently I am currently sitting at around 78% battery usage, compared with about 58% at the same time yesterday.

Initially I thought this problem was related to the push sync but I have a 2 hour pull set up now and my phone wasn't being used for the last 7.5 hours of which RTM held a partial wake lock for 6.5 hours so I went from 100% to 70% battery in that time.

meno,
Would it be possible to submit an Android app issue report via our support system, if you haven't done so already?

Just select your issue from the list on the left, and follow the steps shown. If your issue isn't listed, click on "I'd like to report a new issue".

Your report should provide all the info that we need to investigate further, but we'll be in touch via email if we require any more details.

Thanks!

Andrew,
I've submitted a bug report. I wish I could provide more reliable reproduction steps though!

Same problem here. Although, it's not related to push. Phone has been on 1:45 minutes this morning and RTM has had a partial wake lock for 1:35 minutes of that.

Think I may have finally found my battery drain problem. Hope you fix it 'cause I need the program.....

I've added this to our list to investigate. If you have any details as to when the app seems to be causing battery loss, we'd love to hear them.

In general, in addition to sync, the RTM app may run in the background if you've added an RTM widget to their home screen or if you have location alerts or reminders enabled in the app.

Of those, the only one that should use any more battery than normal is if location alerts is enabled to check location frequently with GPS. Otherwise, there should be minimal impact on battery.

Also, to check battery life, go to Settings > About Phone > Battery Use. The Spare Parts app measures how long an app has been running, not how much battery it's used; so an app running in the background would indeed show to be running as long as the OS.

Hope this helps; please let us know if you're seeing anything else.

RTM is also taking a pretty big hit from my battery on a Nexus S with Gingerbread. I've turned off location functions and removed the widget - RTM is still the biggest use of my battery.

I have same problem with Nexus S with Gingerbread. Also removed widget but left push sync on. Worked fine on Nexus One with Froyo. RTM is number one use of battery, I had to uninstall everything and re-enable everything one by one to narrow it down to RTM.

The way I detected this problem is by dialing "*#*#4636#*#*" then going to battery history and then selecting "partial wake usage".. RTM showed up at the top of the list and the Spare Parts app showed "Phone Idle" at the top of the list. I think this is why the problem is hard to detect.

@darrellcraig: If you download the spare parts app and check the partial wake usage after having your phone asleep for a few hours you should be able to see if it is actually RTM using up the battery by keeping the phone awake constantly.

I get the problem intermittently and can't narrow it down to any specific cause (push sync, no location updates). I have logged a bug with the RTM team but as far as I'm aware it hasn't been resolved.

It could be related to data being turned off and airplane mode. I use an app to turn airplane mode and data on and off to conserve battery life and this may cause a problem with RTM when it tries to sync but can't get a connection.

RTM killed my Nexus S w/ 2.3 in about 5 hours the other day. I had made sure to clear out RTM notifications and don't have any locations set. Push sync is enabled, but I don't remember this happening with my Nexus One.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/P95EaOU6k5JC3mU_XQrhaLy_yWGOVSP6kQaP827DuC4?feat=directlink

(That blue bar below the graph shows how long the phone was "awake" for and it is completely solid - i.e. always awake)

Another pic showing the details of RTM's activity on my phone:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/40g66V2dYNfND-VwwEKlzLy_yWGOVSP6kQaP827DuC4?feat=directlink

I have the same problem on my Nexus S - uses a ton of battery, 70% in my case after 4 hours of being unplugged. :

I'd like to vote for this to get pushed up the priority list, if possible. I'm seeing RTM using two thirds of my battery because of the wakelock. Which really isn't very good.

I'm seeing this on the Nexus S with gingerbread (2.3) as well. I have push sync on. It happens most days when I've used the app, even briefly. I have lots of other things also syncing in the background, and RTM is the only one that has a problem with this.

On battery: 10h 29m 28s
Battery level: 49%
RTM's battery usage: 66%
RTM's CPU total time: 6m 23s
RMT's keep awake time: 10h 11m 22s

I ended up going manual synch and RTM no longer killing my Nexus S battery. Running the widget but with locations off.

I turned sync to manual and turned off location, and RTM still kept my phone awake for 50 minutes. I did have one reminder go off. But like an nwalex and others, I have seen my battery jump. I used to think my phone's battery was just crummy because it died before I went to bed. Without RTM I go to bed with more than 50%.

PS removing my RTM widget also helpwd a lot.

Thanks for these added details; I've added them to our list to investigate.

I've submitted an issue as well. I've also sent reports through Android Feedback that should show up in the Android Market Developer console so you can get system information.

tclaiborne,
Thanks; we'll be in touch as soon as we can!

I'm glad I'm not the only person seeing this. I'm going to go submit a bug report now.

Same problem here with RTM on Nexus S. Keeping the phone awake and draining battery. Sync is set to push. Will try to set to manual..

RTM Dev team? Any progress on your side>

erwanm,
We're investigating this issue; it'd be great if you could submit an issue report as per above so we could get some specifics to help us address this sufficiently.

I'm now running gingerbread and the problem seem to exist still. (Froyo and GB for me so far).

@andrewski I just downloaded 1.4.1 on my desire. I'll see how the battery life workarounds go and report back. Thanks.

meno,
1.4.2 is now available in the Market too. (Sorry for the quick succession of updates. :) For you and anyone else experiencing this problem, we'd be curious to know if this helps!

I've just downloaded 1.4.2 and am trying it out over the next few days. 1.4.1 still has the problem for sure with RTM responsible for 75% of my total battery usage over 11 hours. The 'Keep Awake' was still really high in 1.4.1 (almost as long as the phone 'up time')...this is not the case for other apps that run services.

Please put high priority on the battery problems on nexus s with gingerbread, the app is unusable in its current state.

I'm experiencing the same issues with 1.4.2 on a Nexus S. 50% of battery used and overy 8 hours 'keep awake'. :-(

We've been working to reproduce this issue with both emulators and our collection of Android test devices (we've built up quite the collection :). We weren't able to reproduce the issue, but we made some changes in version 1.4.1 and 1.4.2 that we were hoping might improve things -- unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case. :(

Seeing as the majority of reports are from users of a Nexus S with Gingerbread*, we've now gone ahead and purchased one of these devices so we can try and see what's going on with an actual device. (Thanks to everyone who's been helping us out by following troubleshooting steps and running random commands that we've been sending you via email. :)

We should have the device in our hands later this week, at which point hopefully our engineers can track down once and for all what's happening.

* If you're not a Nexus S user with Gingerbread, and you're experiencing an issue that sounds like this one, please submit an Android app issue report via our support system so we can look into your issue. Thanks! :)

I forgot to add, the same issue appears to affect the Galaxy S also.

Interestingly the Galaxy S uses very similar hardware to the Nexus S, so that might explain things.

This problem needs to be resolved asap. There are many Pro users who've paid good money just so they can use the Android app.

Hey Gary,

Yup, we're thinking it may be hardware specific (which is likely why we can't reproduce the issue with an emulator or any of the devices we have here).

We should have an actual device later in the week (the Nexus S isn't available in Australia, so we've ordered one from overseas). Just as soon as that arrives, we'll be trying to get this tracked down as quickly as we can. We definitely want to see this one resolved as soon as possible!

Here is a little picture to show the severity of the problem, taken on my Nexus S running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5473656/rtm_batteryuse.png

Rest assured, i had to uninstall the app for the time being. I'll keep monitoring this topic as the devs seems so be on this.

For the RTM team, an fyi. I run 2.3 on a rooted HTC Hero, and I'm not experiencing any wake lock issues. So it must be hardware related on the Nexus and Galaxy S.

Since installing 1.4.2 at the weekend, I have not experienced the problem. I'll continue to monitor the situation on my phone.

>taken on my Nexus S running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread):
>http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5473656/rtm_batteryuse.png

same picture, on same device. RTM client version 1.4.2
Now I turned off reminders, and set Sync to "Manual", let's see the picture in the evening

Thanks for the info, everyone!

We're still anxiously waiting for our Nexus S to arrive in Australia (it's coming from the UK), so we can track this down with an actual device. I'll post as soon as we have it in our hands. :)

OK, so I've been running 1.4.2 for a few days now. I have push sync switched on (with an auto sync mode), reminders turned on and locations off (I never use them). So far, I've personally not experienced any problems with 1.4.2

garyreynolds900, glad to hear it's working for you!

Our Nexus S was delivered today, so we're now working to figure out what's affecting this particular device (and also the Galaxy S). I'll post as soon as our engineers have an update. :)

I noticed a marked improvement in battery life on my T-Mobile G2 following the installation of 1.4.1 and 1.4.2. In particular, the "partial wake lock" time for Remember the Milk nearly disappeared. However, I suspect that the root problem still exists, as I have noticed that on some days, RTM will pop back up to the top of the "partial wake lock" list and my battery life will evaporate. Sometimes rebooting the phone returns things to a "good" state, other times not so much.

I have push-sync and auto-sync enabled.