- The new and more drastic battery saving option breaks apps and Android 12 and cannot be switched off.
- The feature is called Phantom Process and may restrict apps in the background.
- In the developer options of Android 12L there should be a possibility to deactivate the feature.
According to tech journalist Mishaal Rahman, Google introduced “a change in the latest OS update that terminates the app processes in the background” under certain conditions. It’s called Phantom Processes, and it works as a more drastic option for saving electricity.
As Rahman mentioned on his Twitter account, the PhantomProcessKiller intervenes when apps start child processes that consume extensive resources while the main process is also active in the background. Under Android 12, apps can start a maximum of 32 child processes, and if they use too much CPU resources, the app can be forced to close.
This means that if a power user app like Termux, a Linux terminal emulator, consumes too much CPU resources while it is active in the background, it will be terminated and you will have no control over it. Ouch.
A patch is on the way …
Fortunately, a patch has been included in the code of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) that provides for changes to the PhantomProcessKiller. Apparently it will be possible to completely deactivate the battery optimization function in the developer options if it interferes with the use of apps. The description of the patch can be found below:
Additional settings for switching the monitoring of phantom processes in the developer options. For power users, the monitoring of phantom processes can be switched off in Settings> Developer options> Feature flags.
the XDA Developers recently reported on a commit in which the Googler Jing Ji said that a toggle was merged in the developer options to disable phantom processing and in his opinion that should “in Android 12L to be possible.”
In summary, the PhantomProcessKiller feature is full of good intentions and most of us probably won’t even notice it during our daily smartphone use. On the other hand, power users should be able to deactivate this function if necessary. The Android development team did not seem to have dealt with it for the update to Android 12. Now this omission is being remedied – and that’s a good thing, isn’t it?