[461am]

Originally Posted by pj_rage

Ahh, I didn't know winterboard didn't just replace files. So it is "changing" the artwork files "on the fly" ? That would explain how it can cause such a performance hit anyway.

From my understanding of it. This is how saurik explains it:

Originally Posted by Saurik

What SummerBoard really had going for it, though, was how it worked: it hooks into SpringBoard and overrides functionality down into its core. This lets it swap out icons at runtime without having to actually muck around on disk and swap out the .png files. This, in turn, makes it incredibly safe: you don't have to worry that the guy packaging the theme managed to think through backups correctly (or that the people who wrote the package mangager didn't think through package conflicts... I'm looking at you Installer...): the theme sits entirely self contained in its own folder.

With WinterBoard, I therefore wanted to bring as much power as I could for theming the device down in one simple backend tool as I possibly could, and I think I've drastically succeeded. Pretty much every form of graphic-file related theme I've so far seen (and a few other varieties we may think of) is supported by WinterBoard, all using the SummerBoard model of "the safe other folder". WinterBoard truly is the modern replacement for SummerBoard. It's also open source.

Source: http://www.saurik.com/id/9

[bhz1]

Is there any difference between downloading a theme and SSH'ing a theme to the iPhone? I ask becasue I just upgraded my son's 2G from 1.1.4 to 2.1 and hes got literally no lag. he is using the KillSign CarbonRed theme. I have a self made theme I SSH'ed into the iPhone. No html or video wallpapers, just a simple image.

FWIW, I only have 19 app store apps installed.

[461am]

well, it shouldn't make a difference since the only real difference is that the cydia theme got placed by a script and yours didn't. But I'll definitely try this with monochrome and see if my troubles go away.

[pj_rage]

I got the safe mode message on springboard last night after updating some app store apps (from the phone). Don't know why exactly, perhaps I got an update for mobilesubstrate or something related when I updated apps on cydia earlier, but either way, I definitely noticed a very big jump in performance when in "safe mode." My theme was turned off and stuff, and apps loaded like instantly. It was really a pleasure to use. I might try removing winterboard and managing the replacement of theme-related files myself to see if I can avoid the performance hit of winterboard. I guess I didn't know how drastic it was since I never compared it myself.

With regard to the battery issue I was/am having... My usage stats have been normal, they've been reading the number of minutes I have actually used the phone, HOWEVER, my mediaserverd problem is back and ran rogue all day, killing 20% of the battery while the phone was untouched, in airplane mode, in my pocket (which normally SHOULD use anywhere from 0 to 2% battery over the same period). I don't know how or why it's back, and I have no idea why now it isn't even reflecting the fact that it's running by displaying higher usage numbers. It's even more annoying now. I liked it better when the usage numbers ran wild so I could tell for sure that something was running / going wrong. Now it just kills my battery with the only indicator being a battery that's dying too fast. I guess I have to keep a constant close eye on my battery level and kill the mediaserverd process whenever I notice the battery draining unusually fast.

If I get some time this weekend, I'm going to get rid of winterboard and replace the artwork files myself and see if I can kill two birds with one stone as far as performance and battery. Now that I see how winterboard is actually working, it seems plausible that it is the battery culprit too by causing mediaserverd to run rogue.

[se23]

so can we safely say winterboard & bossprefs affect iPhone & signal? I was about to send my iPhone back to apple because signal is crazy & batt still drains fast on 2.1

[461am]

Yes and no. Winterboard has an obvious effect on the battery; but the signal thing, I highly doubt bossprefs does (or even can) do anything.

[bhz1]

For some reason winterboard inadvertently did affect signal, but I think only because of power management issues. If winterboard takes up so much cpu/battery, it possibly ends up degrading the signal.

Interestingly, a full reboot of my router and setting SSH as an "allowed application" in the router fixed the wifi/ssh issues. ive rebooted the pc my iphone, installed Cydia updates, left the house, etc... I come in and open the iphone and wifi now connects instantaneously and SSH connects.

I think the lag is more of an issue with 3G iphones becasue my son's 2G now synced with app store apps 1,000 songs and winterboard installed, seems much snappier than my 3G. He does not have categories yet nor five icon dock this iphone has been modded every which way and unlocked at one point since 1.1.3. I always thought this was a better iphone than my other 2G that was originally a 1.0.2.

mediaserverd has to do with iphones core audio. I remember on my old 2g having an issue with mediaserverd eating my battery. I found it running every time I used the ipod or played a game with sound. I had installed sysinfo (obviously not available on 2.x) and killed the process, then i learned that a respring killed teh process and installed BigBoss respring app. I got in the habit of respringing before putting the iphone to sleep after using ipod or even safari and mail as well.

Anotehr method is to fully close the application by holding the home button for 5-10 seconds until it switches back to springboard as opposed to just clicking the home button. Battery life much better.

[461am]

Originally Posted by bhz1

For some reason winterboard inadvertently did affect signal, but I think only because of power management issues. If winterboard takes up so much cpu/battery, it possibly ends up degrading the signal.

Quite possibly. It's too bad I'm not having any luck working with top, otherwise I'd try to come to a proper conclusion as to whether this happens or not.

[bhz1]

I couldnt figure out top either but ps -e in terminal will give you a list of every process running on the iphone

[Miss_Mindy]

I KNEW IT!!!!! I've been saying this for months. In an earlier thread the "cydia vs installer" i said it was cydia and it components that made my phone lag, calls drop and apps crash on a regulary basis. I was "advised" it was apples firmware that did it...yeah freakin right. Everytime I upgrade my phone and re pwn it...it runs worse and worse with each upgrade. I never had ANY of these problems with Ziphone and installer!!!! I sure wish it was available now....i'de rather have a standard ole boring phone that worked as it is suppose to than a cute little theme with my apps constantly crashing and freezing up. Guess I need to give Zibri some extra cash so he releases a working program that doesn't crash your phone. Sorry dev team but I think you as well as apple are releasing programs to fast.

[reznor9]

Originally Posted by Miss_Mindy

I KNEW IT!!!!! I've been saying this for months. In an earlier thread the "cydia vs installer" i said it was cydia and it components that made my phone lag, calls drop and apps crash on a regulary basis. I was "advised" it was apples firmware that did it...yeah freakin right. Everytime I upgrade my phone and re pwn it...it runs worse and worse with each upgrade. I never had ANY of these problems with Ziphone and installer!!!! I sure wish it was available now....i'de rather have a standard ole boring phone that worked as it is suppose to than a cute little theme with my apps constantly crashing and freezing up. Guess I need to give Zibri some extra cash so he releases a working program that doesn't crash your phone. Sorry dev team but I think you as well as apple are releasing programs to fast.

Why dont you just use the pwnage tool and go into advanced/expert settings and just chose the option to make a custom firmware without installing cydia... just install installer 4 if thats what you want... then you can see if cydia is your problem or not. Please let us all know, and try not to just blame the dev team and cydia without testing your theory.

and FYI, zibri is a liar, theif and media whore... not to mention a moron that has no reguard for the saftey of his software. His software screwed up one of my 2G iPhones... lost the wifi, phone signal, IMEI and everything.. wiped clean... email after email and he refused to help. He even deleted messages I posted on his blog for help. I have no respect for him. I sometimes wonder if pwnage tool or iLiberty would have restored function to that old phone, but I gave it away for parts after obsessing over it and working on it almost non stop for 2 months.

[pj_rage]

Originally Posted by bhz1

For some reason winterboard inadvertently did affect signal, but I think only because of power management issues. If winterboard takes up so much cpu/battery, it possibly ends up degrading the signal.

Interestingly, a full reboot of my router and setting SSH as an "allowed application" in the router fixed the wifi/ssh issues. ive rebooted the pc my iphone, installed Cydia updates, left the house, etc... I come in and open the iphone and wifi now connects instantaneously and SSH connects.

I think the lag is more of an issue with 3G iphones becasue my son's 2G now synced with app store apps 1,000 songs and winterboard installed, seems much snappier than my 3G. He does not have categories yet nor five icon dock this iphone has been modded every which way and unlocked at one point since 1.1.3. I always thought this was a better iphone than my other 2G that was originally a 1.0.2.

mediaserverd has to do with iphones core audio. I remember on my old 2g having an issue with mediaserverd eating my battery. I found it running every time I used the ipod or played a game with sound. I had installed sysinfo (obviously not available on 2.x) and killed the process, then i learned that a respring killed teh process and installed BigBoss respring app. I got in the habit of respringing before putting the iphone to sleep after using ipod or even safari and mail as well.

Anotehr method is to fully close the application by holding the home button for 5-10 seconds until it switches back to springboard as opposed to just clicking the home button. Battery life much better.

Good theory regarding the signal/battery problems, but I'm not sure that's the case - at least not for me. As I've mentioned, my battery goes down insanely fast, even when not using the phone at all, due to my mediaserverd problem (or whatever the hell else 2.1 did/does). BUT, my signal has been AWESOME since 2.1. I used to have 1-2 bars 3G pretty much everywhere, but now I have 4-5 bars in the same places. I have definitely NOT noticed any sort of correlation between signal and my rapid battery drain. Signal appears perfect and unaffected by the battery problems. Additionally, my 3G and edge data have both been functioning perfectly, whereas I had alot of problems on 2.0.2 with 3G data just not working, even with good signal.

I also believe that the mediaserverd process is connected to more than just sounds. Or, at least, it runs during more than just sound related stuff (not including when it's running rogue). I think an example of something that uses it is springboard when it loads your icons/background/etc. I think the process literally serves the media to the OS or something like that. Any time the phone is going to display a media file (pic/video/audio/etc) it goes through mediaserverd. Or so it seems.

In other news, I can't wait to get some time this weekend (I hope) to play around with the phone and find the source of this battery/mediaserverd problem. Today I lost 20% battery in 2 hours with only 40 mins ipod use (screen off), and nothing else. Checked out the processes running, and sure enough, mediaserverd was chugging away at 3-4%. This particular case seems like it killed more battery than usual, so I'm not sure if mediaserverd is the actual root of the problem, or just a symptom of a bigger (related) problem. Either way, I killed it and the battery has since only lost 2% in the last 8 hours of not using it at all, while in airplane mode. Which is pretty normal, I think, and about what I expect +/- a percent or two.

And now that I've experienced the sweet snappiness that is the phone without winterboard, I'm becoming much more determined to manage the artwork file replacement myself and ditch winterboard. Lately it's been getting more and more annoying when I exit one app, click the next, and instead of launching it, it lags a second and then it thinks I pressed and held, and the icons start wiggling. Hopefully I'll get to try to fix it this weekend also and I can report back on whether or not I can get a "theme" without the performance hit of winterboard.

[bhz1]

What command are you using to see how much mediaserverd is using? I admit I'm a bit of a novice at unix and googled and discovered the ps -e command. I can read what is running but am not sure what else is there.

yes since 2.1 signal has been impeccable. Prior to this my signal was degrading to the point my phone was totally unreliable. It seemed to be worse when I needed it the most. Today I just drove 4 1/2 hours from the Philly suburbs to the Finger Lakes region of NY state. Once north of Allentown, there was no 3G, just Edge and for the first time I actually had GPRS (at least the GPRS dot icon) Since I was riding i spent a good portion of the trip playing with the iphone, It seemed to switch back and forth seemlessly between edge and gprs. i was using Safari, email and even youtube worked fairly well on edge. Interestingly, I was able to open safari pages and email on gprs. seemed quicker than edge was before 2.1. Checked in at the motel here with free wifi, the iphone latched right on to the wifi signal. We come here a few times a year and I have always had trouble getting both phone (edge) or wifi here.

I switched to numerical battery last night. I lost 4 % in 5 hours in sleep mode. Today, I had it plugged into the car charger the whole trip but unplugged it around 2:00 with 100% showing. I checked weather twice, received 2 texts and sent 2 texts, ran speedtest once. It is now 4:45 and I'm at 89%. I did respring before putting to sleep.

Another thought, what do you have set as timing for your screen lock? I have kept mine on "never" but alwasy manually put it to sleep. All of my apps open in 2 -3 seconds. quite a bit better. i find that the more I respring/reboot, the better the iphone runs and then I no longer have to respring or reboot so often.

All this improvement since rebooting my home router. Doesnt make sense to me. I'm 250 miles from home an dmy iphone is snappier and had a better signal than ecver. What would my home network have to do with this?

[461am]

Originally Posted by bhz1

What command are you using to see how much mediaserverd is using?

Found out how to make top work. It's almost ridiculously simple. Install the top package, install mobileterminal, and just type top in. It's easier to observe through ssh though.

Originally Posted by pj_rage

Today I lost 20% battery in 2 hours with only 40 mins ipod use (screen off), and nothing else. Checked out the processes running, and sure enough, mediaserverd was chugging away at 3-4%.

I just can't recreate this. Mediaserverd for me peaks at 35% and above (as soon as I start playing audio) and then stabilizes at 3-4% usage. Seconds after I stop the audio, it goes right back to 0%.

[pj_rage]

Originally Posted by 461am

Found out how to make top work. It's almost ridiculously simple. Install the top package, install mobileterminal, and just type top in. It's easier to observe through ssh though.

Exactly. Install the top package from cydia. Best to use insomnia (so you can ssh in when the phone is asleep) and SSH, then just type "top" and it opens up. Press o then type "time" or "cpu" to sort by those columns so you can find the culprits. Then press q when you want to quit. As mentioned you can do it from mobile terminal also, but it's hard to view all the info that way. Once you see the process id number on the left in top, you can quit top and type "kill <id>" where <id> is the id number" ie "kill 223". This is what I do when I see that mediaserverd is continually running.

My timing lock is set to 1 minute, but I always manually lock it. Losing 4% in 5 hours non-airplane mode without touching the phone is probably pretty normal, maybe a little worse than I would personally expect, but every battery is a little different I'm sure, plus fetch/push settings, brightness, etc. Losing 11% with the little bit of usage you had in 2:45 seems a little too much compared to what I was getting pre-2.1, but again I guess it could be normal.