IssueTracker

have you actually hit this limit in practice?

I've hit this limit and that made me question the choice of !28 in this bug report.

The scenario is the following:

 - we're deploying unit and functional tests over SSH to non rooted Android devices
 - beside executables we're deploying big assets (several GB) over SSH wtih rsync
 - we're using SSHDroid which home is /data/data/berserker.android.apps.sshdroid/home

/data/data/berserker.android.apps.sshdroid/home is already 48 characters which is more than a third of the maximum allowed name if you pass an absolute path to dlopen()

Gregory

cl: https://android-review.googlesource.com/145357

As a user I want to be able to see these stats too.  I there is not a really good reason, this function should be restored.

As a user I want to be able to see these stats too.

As a user, I would also like to see this.

[Comment deleted]

Apps to get better stats saved my batterie multiple times.

This need to be fixed

Starting from KitKat  users  are not able to easily detect  "No-Sleep" bugs which is very well known Battery Drain cause.

This change must be reverted

Ich möchte als Anwender den Batteryverbrauch ermitteln können.Ich möchte diese Statistiken sehen.

I'm curious about what the motivation for this change was. Are we missing some security issue?

thanks so much but i think battery not save
 

I vote for this!

I would like battery stats back as well.

Battery stats is beneficial for many users, it should be reverted to its previous state.

I would like them back too

I vote for this.

i vote for this too. without apps like this,  devs would not know if their apps have bugs that drain battery.  without that knowlege,  issues will not be identified and fixed.  users would get frustrated and would eventually swich to the other side. you wouldn't want that,  right??

[Comment deleted]

I vote for this

I vote
 for this.

I also vote for restoring that permission, as there are lots of users who were benefiting from third party apps that detect abusive uses of battery and wakelock.

Battery status permission is one of the distinguish feature from iOS.. i would like get this permission forever.. strictly vote this issue...

The one above me somewhere about iOS, and the one about third party apps,
that is the main reason why I want this permission moved back to the user
category.

I vote for this!

"According to a study made by P. Vekris: “55% of 328 applications using wakelocks do not follow our policies for no-sleep bugs” [2012]. Some major applications have been released with No-Sleep bugs."
ref : http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/wakelocks-detect-no-sleep-issues-in-android-applications

How Android developers and users have to deal with this issue  in KitKat??

Please fix. Also please don't remove the gallery app. I don't want the dang Google Plus thing.

Be careful Google. 4.4 is looking more and more like you're going to piss a lot of people off.

I vote for this too, it is useful to see what is draining the battery in the case of aosp roms.

Another unacceptable and unneeded change within Android. Please revert as suggested by the op.

I don't like the direction where android is going. Closed source changes, never a good thing.

I vote this too. How can I use some of the battery status apps that I like?

I vote for this too

Have my vote!

[Comment deleted]

I'd like to see Wakelock Detector at the android 4.4 very much!

I absolutely vote for this!!!

Folks, please STAR the issue in the upper left hand corner of the page instead of constantly adding a vote comment. Vote comments serve not but to annoy the crap out of everyone who has starred it.

i vote for this !!

I vote for this

Not cool Goog.give it back.

[Comment deleted]

I vote for Ruud. I need this app

I vote for this

Please allow battery stat permissions. Very useful for monitoring!

 Posting a comment that "you vote for this" does +nothing+.  Make sure you highlight the star near the top off this page.  That gets counted as a vote for this issue.

I agree with all of the above.  That someone could make this change with little or no consideration as to the negative effects of such a change is frustrating and a bit scary.  Is there no oversight of changes like this?  You don't change APIs without major justification.

In trying to deal with putting the backup control mechanism in the wrong place, they "fixed" the problem, but caused a much bigger problem.

They should have removed the backup controls from the battery info/status api and created a separate api for that function.  They took a shortcut and we're now seeing the downside of taking shortcuts.

Reverse this change.

Really need this back. Used an app for my Nexus 7 and found a couple of games were the culprit. Having issues again with something and now I have no way to find out. Frustrating as my partner was going to get a Nexus 7 but not until we can identify why my battery is terrible.

As a user, I would also like to see this.

Please reintroduce as required for wake lock analysis .

Please undo

[Comment deleted]

[Comment deleted]

I vote for this!!

Please undo this change asap! It makes no sense to me!

for the last time people,  click the star at the top left of this page,  typing "I vote for this" does nothing and you are annoying the people like me waiting for a useful response from Google or a workaround from the more capable dev community.

Please undo this

I voted that I want my battery stats back. I use GSAM app everyday to know what's going on with my apps.
I find we are entering Apple territory, that is, Big brother knows best and can control whatever he wants.

I vote for this.

Vote

Vote

Vote

Vote !

I vote for this

Bad decision. Please restore this functionality so that apps like Wakelock Detector can work again. It helped me understand why my phone's battery occasionally drained after wireless charging.

Vote!
Undo this change or explain.

PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT if you have nothing constructive to say (technical information, information on why Google changed this, etc). DO NOT just say "I vote!!"

As comment number 36 said;
Folks, please STAR the issue in the upper left hand corner of the page
instead of constantly adding a vote comment. Vote comments serve not but to
annoy the crap out of everyone who has starred it.

I also vote for this.

Я за отмену этого изменения!  

Fixxx

Star marked. I vote too

I vote for it

Я за отмену этого изменения!

Vote!

Bad time for that move, for me the KitKat update came in just after the trouble with Google Play Services keeping lots of devices awake and sucking their batteries empty. Starred.

I vote for this!

Please undo this

I vote for this!

I *ed the issue but would like to explain WHY this tool is useful from a user perspective.

After updating to 4.4 on my Nexus 4 I've noticed that my phone will go from a full charge to almost dead or fully dead /overnight/ (depending on how much I sleep in).  The class of applications that use this feature are the only tool I have for determining where the fault for this change in behavior lies and thus how to begin fixing the issue.

For those of you who have issues with overnight drain, put your phone on airplane mode and consider force stopping offending apps. I did that last night: when I went to sleep it was 88%, when I woke up it was 88%. Same story for most of the other times I did that. Regardless, I would definitely like to see this issue fixed; this is an important permission that shouldn't have been revoked in the first place. That said, I'm sure Google is on it.

Voted

Vote

Google, please make KitKat more user-friendly.

Something is keeping my phone awake and killing my battery. I used to be able to diagnose such issues, but not any more. Thanks Google!

Voted for this.  I seriously need to use applications which cause no-sleep problems.

I vote for this too!

Please undo this

This is an important issue that needs to be resolved.

One can suppose this permission was removed to prevent battery monitoring apps to blame other apps (including Google apps) for (supposedly) bad behaviour.

[Comment deleted]

Starred issue, would definitely like this reverted please.

Bitte wieder Rückgängig machen

Vote

I vote for this... This service is critical for general troubleshooting

I vote to revert this code so that BBS+ works again.

What's wrong, Google? Afraid that msm_hsic_wakelock issue (which has never been solved and eats my phone's battery in a day) was getting too much attention?

I vote for this

STOP WRITING "I VOTE FOR THIS"! Simply click on the star!

As to the issue, I think that what happened is really a shame.

First of all, I sort of agree with the user that said that this could be a way to hide battery drain problems caused by Google services under the carpet. These problems must be solved, and if Google thinks that an "out of sight, out of mind" approach is an acceptable solution, well, this is a real problem.

Also, giving users the possibility to understand what causes a battery drain in their phones is important, that's why the choice of restricting the battery stat service is definitely an unfortunate choice. One of the reasons why Android gained traction over iOS is its flexibility. Now Google is going in the wrong direction.

Another big problem is the way Google is handling Android OS updates. I see two major problems:
1) there is no early access to newer versions of Android OS (betas) prior to official release
2) too often there are changes that break existing applications, and too often those changes are not documented and not disclosed to developers in advance.

Consider what Microsoft does with Windows... of course it's impossible to guarantee backwards compatibility to every applications for every new version of Windows. But new versions are released to developers many months before their actual release date, so developers (and common users) can test their applications with the new version.

So Google should really change the way they handle Android OS updates, otherwise its developers will get annoyed and switch to WP development as soon as it reaches a decent market share (which will happen).

This is the second time I've seen a comment like this:

"2) too often there are changes that break existing applications, and too often those changes are not documented and not disclosed to developers in advance."

I am very much in favor of restoring this functionality but everyone here needs to keep in mind that this was a private undocumented API. Apple and Microsoft aren't going to notify developers about changes to internal APIs anymore than Google has in this case and nor should they.

I want it back !!!

I would like this back please.

I vote for this!

I agree - upgrade policy is disgraceful.. features should be added not removed or broken.

sorry, but this move (and such) will drive end users away after developers start giving up..

[Comment deleted]

#11
"I'm curious about what the motivation for this change was. Are we missing some security issue?"

I'm also curious. Could the batterystats/batteryinfo make the device vulnerable to side channel attacks?

Voted.

Why would functionality like this be removed intentionally?

Maybe they have reason to do this, but seems we really need to hear a proper explanation.

I vote for this as well and would be very interested to know why it was changed in the first place!

Please undo this change.

Google, please undo this change. As an user I found very helpful the detailed level of info provided by apps like BetterBatteryStats in order to diagnose which apps or services are draining the battery and in which cases.

How can an os update ever be allowed to break apps that adheres to api's? Please ensure compatibility and proper regression testing before you roll out updates Google. This change is breaking one of my favorite apps. If battery stats truly breaks security why not offer an alternate interface/service to devs so that existing apps continue to work with a bit of porting work?

Agree with the above.  The standard usage readout does not show all apps and doesn't provide enough drill down, especially when it comes to wakelocks, to be useful. The manner inwhich this has been introduced has also been ddisconcertingly opaque.

Voto para esta modificação ser revertida !

I vote for you undo this change !

I need this feature.

Fixx

Open Source... ?
I need this feature restored as soon as possible.
Kitkat is killing my Nexus battery. Probably due to the "improved" gnow intagration.
Fix!

What happened to open-source?? Come on google remove the restriction pls.

I would like them back too

Please add them

Add them.

Please fix so I can monitor my battery again without root

[Comment deleted]

Dont you guys understand why Google dont want us to see stats? Because almost all the time the problem of drain has to do with
google services. Google just doesn't want people to deactivate their services, instead of fixing the bugs.

People, dont you realise? Android will become closer and closer. It already started a few versions ago. It will become almost
as closed as Apple. Mark my words. Keep this message. From 3/4 years you will see. This is not a hunch, it's just
facts...

I hope Tizen soars up, and be a viable alternative and aim to be to what Android used to be.

I dont want to root my phone just to monitor battery stats!

I would like to be able to continue using battery consumption monitoring apps such as  gsam, better battery stats, battery monitor, and other similar apps

Please undo this

Please revert this change or at least advertise why it was made in the first place.

Please undo this

I vote for this.

Information is necessary for a device owner to actually be in control.
The system must not withhold any information from the user.
Please revert the change.

This permission enforcement is working as intended to protect user data.  BatteryStats has never been a public API, so you cannot depend on its implementation.

Can this bug be considered as feature request to make batterystats a public API?

Please explain how viewing stats "protects" user data.

No offense but could you please be a little more specific about "as intended" (until 4.4 that obviously was not important enough as the permission would be granted to an app).
The change to the permissions was made in 4.4 with a reference to a non-public issue number and I would be really happy to read about the intent if the issue would be made public.

Google please respect the 800 people following this issue. If you care about privacy, stop games like Angry Birds from accessing my location, phone status and identity (imei, phone number) accounts/email addresses, etc, and bring back App Ops!

BATTERY_STATS should be a permission available for users to review when installing an app, like every other permission. 800 stars for loss of a "hidden api" speaks volumes.
Please mark it as enhancement and reopen it.

Agreed with the above comments.  This is a freakish disappointment, losing such a basic and essential feature for my everyday phone experience.  Not being able to view my battery data has literally made me not want to upgrade my phone, since it's for work and I can't root it.  Google, don't start acting childish like Apple...you'll lose your angle.  

I'm certainly not upgrading until this gets fixed. There's no reason for this change. If there were, why aren't we getting any more reason than "We intended it"? Only those with guilt hide things.

You revoked access to flight mode via 3rd party apps - CyanogenMod offered access via profiles at user-definable points in time.

You're going to remove access to battery stats because of privacy concerns? Besides hoping for CyanogenMod to once again fix your bad decision, I wonder what guys at Google think is worth protecting when it comes to _real_ private data - trust me, we, the users, will never forget that NSA disaster.

Google please reconsider this change.  Wakelock monitoring applications are very helpful for end users to get most out of their Android devices.

[Comment deleted]

[Comment deleted]

I'm very glad to hear that this decision was made to protect user data. I for one would be very concerned if information about my battery usage was to be shared with app developers. As there is no facility in Android to allow the user to make choices about what data is shared with apps, then a blanket ban is clearly the only solution. If Android ever develops such a facility (you could call it 'Permissions'), you might want to consider allowing users to decide which apps access which data on a fine-grained basis - you could call such a feature 'App Ops'.

Anyway, thanks for guarding user data so zealously!

Protecting user data? Lolada!

Really do you think we are all imbeciles? What is this? Are you kidding with us? Protecting user data??? What a joke... At least say we dont want and that it's. We are going to close the platform, because we want. We want to drain your battery tracking every place you are, everything message you type and conversation you make. Just dont joke with us...

For those that are rooted, you can regain this functionality via an Xposed module: http://repo.xposed.info/module/com.gsamlabs.xposed.mods.enablebatterystatspermission

Works with all of the battery stats apps that I've tried.

This is outrageous! When I woke up this morning, my Nexus 4 had turned itself off and would not turn on again until I connected the charger. Because you are "protecting" the user from too much knowledge, I am unable to find out which app caused this. This could happen again any time, making me lose trust in my Android devices. Any more decisions like these and users will stop talking of rooting, calling it jailbreaking instead.

I don't think this decision was made to protect user data. I think it just makes a lot of users can not know many system processes consume power

I do not feel that this is fair to this user and that it should not be allowed to keep "battery consumption"
Fallenangelzunite13@Gmail.com

I believe we should be able to enable it somehow, so make this as default option with posibilities to change it, do not make decision for us!

It's clearly made to stop us botching about how wake lock infested Google kernels are... Airplane mode, gps, now battery stats, hey Google why don't you bad other keyboard apps? You never know what they might be logging... At which point I'll basically have an iPhone with a bigger screen in my hands :)

I did not see any valuable data needs to be protect regarding Battery
stats. Battery time have limitation similarly to limited storage. My reason
to uninstall app is determined by both size of app and time of battery
consumed. Could you explain what kind of user data you want to protect?

Battery stats should not be compliant to root as they are not a security risk. Having to access root is countertuitive since after root access given, kernel is open to console attack.

Please revert back access to batt_stats

Do it!!!

My Android device is sometimes during the night consuming more battery than normal. The only effective way to figure out the culprit in such cases is to use apps like BetterBatteryStats and to look at the wakelocks and partial wakelocks. Google, please give us back this possibility without having to root the phone!

Come on google re-enable this as my N5 is waking up my wi-fi every few minutes for no discernible reason, I need access again.

Vote!
Change it back!

jsharkey@android.com: "WorkingAsIntended" may be true, but the note you provide in changing the status of this bug is absolutely *useless*.  Not only does it not answer the questions from which the bug arose, it creates more questions. An evasive Republican politician could not have done better.

1.  What user data is being protected and from whom?
2.  Presuming you can answer #1, how is the withholding of that user data from everyone, including the user, protecting them?  What is the risk involved in the revelation of this at-risk data, both to the user himself and to the public at-large.
3.  "WorkingAsIntended" is the status of this bug.  What is the intent?  And whose intent, exactly.

This was a *change*, a purposeful change from the way it was before to the way it is now.  To simply say, "oh, this was on purpose" as your answer to the (at time of writing) 873 people who are concerned enough about the effects of this change to have starred this bug is ridiculous and offensive within an *ecosystem* that even pretends to be open-source.

If this was done for a reason, to fix a problem, what was the problem?  What was the reason?  What hole are you plugging?  You have *got* to be able to do better than that.

Please note, I am *not* assuming that this change was bad.  Your reasons may make perfect sense.  But enough of us have no clue what a sensible reason could possibly be that there are 873 stars up there.

C'mon, really?

Please change this feature back. I don't care if we cannot depend on its implementation, we still will depend on it as it has being giving us the correct information previously.

Revert this immediately.

Google = Big Brother?

I vote for this

i agreed plse revert back , that we have this option to use !!!!!!
We all know as Android users you" suffer" battery drain, from time to time !!
This option is important to us,
i have pinpointed a few 3rd  apps ,in past  causing wakelocks /battery drain
i could monitor the app or change apps settings or uninstall
thank  you

I also vote for this. Closing the battery stats API will only result in further giving Android a bad reputation for poor battery life. "Don't be evil."

I was just reading Wikiepdia list of "Features" for Android version 4.4, and down the list I find this.  This isn't a "Feature", this is eliminating essential capabilities!

Google / Android"
Please make Battery Stats available so users can maintain control of our devices.
Runaway battery drains are a significant problem, and being able to use apps that monitor such behavior is necessary to keep our phones working correctly.

Since an Android dev "jsharkey" already responded, said this change is "working as intended", it's unfortunately likely that Google is just giving the 907 of who have Starred this issue a big middle finger.

Ah, well.  At least there are ROMs out there like CyanogenMod, that maintain features that users want, as well as adding new ones (and removing all the Google bullsh!t)

"Don't Be Evil" => "Be Evil For Growth and PROFIT!!!"

Hier ist meine Stimme. Bitte wieder rueckgaengig machen, Batterie-Statistiken sind sehr nuetzlich.

I vote for this as well, battery information is quite useful for android users and rooting is not an option on a note 3.

This is also a very important feature for me.
If there is a security issue with it, just fix the security issue, don't drop the wholefeature!!!

I vote for this, too!

All involved with removing this permission should be ashamed of themselves. Do you think we are stupid? There was no "sensitive" data being exposed by that permission.

This really looks to me like some PM who couldn`t produce anything useful wanted to look like they were doing work so they removed permissions under the 'ol 'security concerns' blanket. I have trouble believing a decent person would be interested in cutting developers off from useful and safe functionality.

I'd like to see access to batterystats added back to Android.

With the new updates I've been experiencing very bad battery drains. I would normally use battery analysis apps to figure out what is causing them (the stock analysis is NOT detailed enough). This is no longer possible and is a big hit to the usability of Android OS.

SHUT UP AND LET THE DEVELOPERS UPDATE THIS WITH USEFUL INFORMATION!!

We do not know whichapplication is draining battery and we do not want to root please give accesses to Battery drain
App

Google why this restrictions, reason to leave Nokia Symby was the same again. Previously it was not so restricted but later on it went on and on and one day I left. I think it is again high time to search something which do not restrict so much. One more unnecessery restriction by Google in kitkat is applications cannot write SDcard. It is my SDcard why google decides my applications cannot write and his own can??

As paid a user of Batter Drain Analyzer I would like Google to give me a refund because the app is essentially useless. It is unfair to both app users and app creators to make changes lile blocking access to battery stats with any explanation. Please don't be evil Google, please don't become like Apple.

Well we are up to 947 stars and no more info from jsharkey@android.com.
I guess we can assume that the speculation is correct and they removed this from us so we cannot see that Google apps are the culprits for all the excessive battery drainage.

If this is not true then you jsharkey or someone else from Android needs to provide the answers to post #155.
Please fill us in one way or the other so we can decide if Google is worth supporting in our future purchases.

My guess is Google knowingly is using apps to do some devious (Do Evil!) things now.  So they don't want you to see how many kernel wakes occur as they  monitor using the phone microphone (sic) your office and your wifi SSID building the mega data warehouse. Now you can't turn off the WiFi and several other features are constantly running. What killed your battery...the monitoring of stuff did...I smell a RAT!

Could we please get an update on the status? Coming from Apple, I used to complain about the monolithic culture of secrets.. but at least they were concerned with perfecting the user experience. Every experience I've had with Android DEVICES has been great, but every issue I've had with the OS itself has turned out to be related to Google implementing changes out-of-the-blue. If anyone would like to join an organization dedicated to independently auditing Google's code on behalf of device manufacturers before they will deploy in future please get in touch.

As a user, I would also like to see this.

Bring this back google.

I can accept that the permission was removed, but only if you also implement a change so that a wakelock can't keep the device awake for extendes periods of time. I realize this may break some apps, but that it better than the current situation. Perhaps then the app developers will learn not to abuse wakelocks.

As it is now, it is impossible to diagnose a wakelock issue with an app.

Wow great to use this