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Tasker randomly stops running profiles

I'm running Android 10 on a Nokia 7.1, with v5.14.6 of Tasker installed.

Starting in the past few weeks, Tasker randomly stops executing tasks.  When this happens, if I don't notice it right away, my battery will deplete *a lot*.  For example, if I don't notice this for a few hours, I could lose 50% or more of battery.  

Rebooting my phone fixes the issue (until it occurs again).  Sometimes this will occur several times a day, sometimes several days will go by without it happening.  I can't find any rhyme or reason as to when/why it happens.

I've uninstalled Tasker and then re-installed, but the issue still occurs.

I know Tasker recently released an update in late October.  So I uninstalled v5.14.6 and reinstalled v5.13.5 (from joaoapps.com).  So far, the issue hasn't reoccurred.

Is there something in v5.14.6 that could be causing this?  The same profiles/tasks were used on both versions.

I'm not overly concerned about my tasks stopping, as I don't run anything super important (just for convenience).  I'm more concerned about my battery level being obliterated if I don't notice the issue for a while.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.  Thanks.

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MD

I think I finally figured out the main (though not entire) cause of my issue.

I have a profile that checks for State-Orientation-is Face Down. Whenever I have this profile off, the issue never occurs. Whenever I have it on, the issue occurs, but randomly. I'm not sure what else is leading to the issue when the profile in question is active. I've been using this profile for well over a year with no issue. And even over the time I've been dealing with this issue, the profile still executes its task most of the time.

One other thing that's happened within the past month or so is that I received a security update for my device. Perhaps something in that update is causing the profile to now be an issue? I don't know.

Is anyone aware of something else I can do so having this profile active won't lead to the issue again? Or perhaps even another way I can use to detect my device is Face Down, so I don't have to use the Orientation State anymore?

One other thing I should mention--after an in-depth Google search, I came across a years old post that sounds like someone is describing almost exactly the same issue I am having. ( https://groups.google.com/g/tasker/c/gFQufnZ6HZQ ). After reading this, when the issue happened to me, I even tried what the post describes--rather than rebooting, I turned a profile off, then back on, so I could press the check button. Once doing that, everything worked correctly again without the need for a reboot. (Until the issue occurred again.)

One difference, though, between what is happened to me and what is described in the post is that when the issue happens to me, none of my profiles are executed in Tasker. (But the poster says their issue was only with their Face Down profile--all other profiles still worked for them.)

Anyway, any help would be appreciated.

Lastly, just so I'm clear, I am back running the latest version of Tasker: v5.14.6. The device is a Nokia 7.1 running Android 10 with Android security patch level October 1, 2021. (Which, I think, is supposedly the *last* security update Nokia is releasing for this device, so if the issue is due to something in the last security update I received, I hope someone here has an idea as to how to circumvent the issue.)

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Maybe what is happening is that one of your tasks is running in an infinite cycle? Can that be it?

MD

Thanks for the reply.  I don't believe that's the cause.  At least I can't find any evidence of it. 

But since I turned off the "State Edit Orientation-Is Face Down" item, the issue disappeared.  It's been fine for 4 or 5 days now. 

I'm now using a "State Edit Any Sensor" check to determine if my device is facedown, so I have the same functionality as before.  But it's just odd, since I'd been using the Orientation check for close to, if not more than, a year with no issues.

Can you please export your profile's description (not xml) so I can take a look? Long-click the profile in Tasker->export description Thanks in advance

MD

Sure.  Here it is...

Profile: Orientation Face Down
Settings: Restore: no
State: Orientation [ Is:Face Down ]

Enter Task: Set Facedown Variable Yes

A1: If [ %Where ~ Home ]

A2: Variable Set [
Name: %Facedown
To: Yes
Max Rounding Digits: 3 ]

A3: End If

Exit Task: Set Facedown Variable No

A1: Variable Set [
Name: %Facedown
To: No
Max Rounding Digits: 3 ]

Yeah, that seems super innocuous. And can you absolutely reproduce the behaviour? If you enable that profile, other profiles stop triggering right away?

MD

I don't want to give a hard yes to your question. So I'll explain instead...

After I noticed the issue and was actively enabling/disabling each of my profiles to find the cause, enabling this profile would cause other profiles to stop triggering within usually 30 minutes or so.

*But*, before I started trying to actively troubleshoot this, the issue would happen randomly--sometimes every couple of hours, sometimes days would go by without it happening. And during the whole time, the profile that is supposedly the cause was enabled non-stop.

Also, just to be clear, the issue with the profile would *not* necessarily happen after it was triggered, just enabled. So there has to be something else happening in conjunction with the profile being enabled that caused the issue--not sure if that "something else" is within Tasker or with my overall device.

But since the issue started only in the past month or so, perhaps something was updated which Tasker relies on for the Orientation state. I don't know. That's just conjecture.

MD

Nevermind.  The issue just happened again when using v5.13.5.  So the cause isn't the latest version of Tasker.  Back to square one.

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