I got the update to 2.0.11.1 via F-Droid now and it doesn’t seem to help unfortunately.
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I did another “fresh start” test with the latest release. Battery consumption seemed better at first but went up again, unfortunately. Please find the log files below.
- com.github.catfriend1.syncthingfork_release_v2.0.11.2_arm64-v8a.apk Pixel 6 Android 16 QPDR1, Stock OS
- syncthing 2.0.11-1 Arch Linux (Desktop PC)
- new configs, one newly shared folder
syncthing.log (21.2 KB)
android.log (277 Bytes)
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I asked a friend of mine to install syncthing-fork on his Pixel 6 with GrapheneOS’s Android 16 via F-Droid. (Reminder: I have the same phone but with stock Android 16.)
He did not configure anything (no connections) but was mostly on WiFi. And as we know:
His battery consumption over 10,5 hours was at 2 %. The problem seems to be specifically Google’s Android on Pixel phones combined with syncthing V2.
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This might have something to do with periodic database maintenance.
You can try setting STDBMAINTENANCEINTERVAL=999999h in Troubleshooting → Environment variables to set the interval to about 111 years (practically never).
I pasted this expression in the setting you mention, but it does not help for me, unfortunately. Thanks though!
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Same for me
Thank you for this information. Unfortunately it did not help to fix the drain of the battery issue (syncthing-fork 2.0.11.2 on Pixel 8 with Android)
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Today I have got this Android-Protocol:
15:12:091/DisplayManager Choreographer implicitly registered for the refresh rate.
15:12:09E/ashmem Pinning is deprecated since Android Q. Please use trim or other methods.
Maybe this helps to debug the battery issue.
Also I noticed, that something activated the “running in background” option, which I deactivaed to stop the annoying draining of the battery.
Hi there, unfortunately, the battery issue is still not fixed. version: v2.0.11.3 (Android 16 on Pixel 8)
I created an account just for this reply, so far: I also have huge battery drain (according to the system ~40% usage).
I am a Fairphone user with Fairphone OS and Android 15. My device is rooted.
I already tried reducing the num connections to 1. Using Syncthing with 4 devices, while one of them is my server all othet 3 devices sync to, basically.
Edit: Oh and I installed synthing-fork v2.0.11.3 via F-Droid.
As far as I know this version contains the same syncthing 2.0.11 release and therefore is not expected to change battery behavior. We believe that the Syncthing-Fork wrapper has nothing to do with the actual problem since the problem also exists when running syncthing via termux.
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Today I see battery drain even with “force stop” option enabled. syncthing-fork v2.0.11.2
I recently started using pixel 9a and just noticed ~35% battery usage, compared to ~2% on my galaxy s20 5g. They are both using syncthing-fork v2.
As a temporary measure, I’ve disabled unrestricted background battery usage of syncthing-fork. Hopefully it can make a difference.
I also just noticed that the syncthing-fork repo was transferred to a person who only joined github 3 weeks ago and is very suspicious (check out status · Issue #16 · researchxxl/syncthing-android · GitHub).
I am also experiencing this issue on a Pixel 8a with Android 16. I only really noticed it over the past week, but it may have been longer. Tried some of the things recommended here, no luck, still using 40% battery despite transferring very few small files . Tried both the F-Droid version and the Google Play version just due to the issues raised in that other mega-thread and that didn’t make a difference either.
When I tried to downgrade to the last v1 release apk I was unable to get it to run because it was claiming another syncthing process was already running, despite having uninstalled the v2 version. I have temporarily reinstalled the latest GPlay v2 version and set it to only sync when plugged in, although not ideal, to prevent the crazy battery drain. Hoping this can be fixed soon despite the other Syncthing-Fork mess going on.
please double check opening android settings - go to apps - and see if you have two apps installed or running because of the different app package ids between v1 and v2.. i have made a maintenance release 1.30.0.5 with the latest wrapper for the known as batteryfriendly v1 version of syncthing fork to test
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After experimenting quite a bit with Syncthing over the last day, I’d like to add my two cents regarding the reported battery issues. Device: Pixel 7
Looking at Android’s battery statistics, I also see values of around ~60% attributed to Syncthing, even though I only sync a single file that rarely changes. To better understand this, I did some debugging, including building the Android app from source and adding some basic instrumentation to inspect CPU usage.
For me, even though Android reports ~60% battery usage for Syncthing, around two hours of mostly idle time resulted in only ~30 seconds of cumulative CPU time attributed to Syncthing-related processes. This indicates that a high percentage shown in Android’s battery statistics does not necessarily imply high CPU usage. I therefore wonder whether others who report battery issues actually observe a noticeably faster real-world battery drain.
If Syncthing were truly responsible for ~60% of the device’s total energy usage, one would expect the phone to last significantly less time overall (roughly half the usual runtime). Based on my subjective impression, I did not notice a clear difference in actual battery life between older and newer Syncthing versions.
Some technical observations: Syncthing keeps a foreground service running continuously, even when configured for periodic syncs. As far as I can tell, this behavior also existed in earlier versions. While this foreground service does not continuously consume CPU resources, it may influence how Android accounts for battery usage and how aggressively the system enters deeper sleep states. This could plausibly explain the high battery usage percentages being reported, even with low observed CPU activity.
I’m not aware of any officially documented changes to Android’s battery statistics in the very recent past. However, Pixel devices receive platform and power-management updates earlier than other devices, and even smaller changes in how foreground services are accounted for can significantly affect the reported battery usage percentages without reflecting a real change in energy consumption.
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My battery time was reduced a lot and the phone was warmer with the screen off. (was, because I haven’t used syncthing v2 for that reason)
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Same for me. I first felt the higher battery usage because my phone got much warmer with syncthing running in the background. Also real world battery life was much worse and I needed to recharge mid-day. After I noticed that I looked at battery statistics and found syncthing using much more than I used to see. That being said, since I got the December update for Pixel (6) phones, syncthing seems to use less battery (still on Syncthing-Fork 2.0.11.2). Sometimes under 20 % (which is still more than all the other apps). I don’t really understand what might have happened, though …
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Thanks for the clarifications. Seems we are not all seeing the same symptoms, phone getting noticeably warm is clearly beyond what I observed.
I find it interesting that the behavior changed after a Pixel update. To me that sounds like those battery issues might be at least partly related to Android / device power management. Hope the root cause (if ther is a single one) can be identified.
We could try to gather more data with the power profiler:
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