Constant 50% CPU usage on iPhone running iOS8

I don't usually publish break/fix stuff here, but I couldn't find ANYTHING on the Internet that helped me solve this one, and I think I've nailed it.  So here goes.

I have an iPhone 6 running iOS 8.x, I am on the Rogers network in Canada.  I was travelling in the US on the AT&T network, and got a carrier update which I mistakenly applied (although all my support calls indicated that this shouldn't affect anything).  Upon returning to Canada, I discovered my CPU usage was bouncing between 50-51% as a flat bar (Discovered using SysStatLite).  Anyone who knows anything about CPU graphs and computers know that when a computer is idle, the CPU bounces between 2-8%, but when it's doing stuff, the CPU graph bounces randomly all over the place, unless the CPU is pegged at 100% doing some processing (photo editing, video editing, video gaming, etc)

Idle CPU Example

As you can imagine, the two biggest battery eaters on a mobile device is the CPU and Screen, followed closely by network).  So with my CPU hovering at 50%, my battery life was cut in half.  an hour drive home would eat 1/4 of my battery, so that's like 4-5 hours of battery life in my phone, not acceptable!

So let's get into the list of things I tried without getting intrusive:

• Rebooting
• Closing all open applications (double-tap home screen and close apps)
• Turning off all background apps
• Turning off all location services
• Going into Airplane mode
• Restoring from iCloud

Whoa! Going into Airplane mode killed the CPU instantly, that's a good sign.  In fact, turning airplane mode back off, then left my CPU normal... but only for 30-60 minutes, then back to 50%!

50% CPU, airplane mode to 8%, off airplane mode spike and back to 8%

As you can probably guess, I don't just feel my phone in my pocket getting warm and immediately open it, turn on airplane mode, and then turn it off and stick it back in my pocket, so I would often pull it out of my pocket and think "damn, my phone is hot", and I have 30% battery left.

Time to call support

I called Apple.  Apple support is A-Mazing if you have never called it.  We did a number of things

• Back-up the phone and Restore it from iCloud (and also from iTunes), again
• Factory reset the phone (no issues, but no data)
• Set up the phone from scratch again (without using a backup, by the way this is extremely intrusive and painful!)

All these problems still persisted.  Apple replaced my phone.

THE PROBLEM STILL EXISTED!!

I went to Rogers support, they replaced my SIM, so now I have a new phone, new data, and new SIM and the problem still existed.  Clearly since this isn't wide-spread on the Internet it was something I was doing.  I started researching everything that I could find (apps would crash as seen in SysStatLite) and I would research them

• CommCenter crashed -- disabled MMS
• Searchd crashed -- found a baller iPhone5 wall paper.
• iCloud backup could cause the CPU usage

Still nothing seemed to drop the CPU instantly, until I came across this community article.
Answer #3 on this page indicated that if you sync'd your phone against an Exchange server, contacts would have issues now and then.

This made something click for me.  As a former Microsoft employee, I'm pretty knowledgable on Exchange (after my years working on Small Business Server).  I knew that Outlook.com supported Exchange Active Sync which is a fantastic protocol for syncing email, usually reserved for full Exchange (Office365).  Instead of setting up my iPhone using the default Outlook.com settings, I chose to set up Outlook.com as an exchange server.  I deleted my personal email account and re-set it up using the prescribed method for syncing Outlook.com addresses on iPhone.  One of the benefits of EAS is you never have to reconfigure it, even if an admin moves something around.  So I figure maybe an admin would move my mailbox somewhere, and change the config, but my hard-coded config on the phone wouldn't adapt to this.


So far the CPU hasn't spiked since! it's been idle and my battery life rocks again!

So, the moral of the story is (aka, TL;DR)

(1) Don't be too smart for these devices

(2) Use the most tested methods when using both Apple and Microsoft software/hardware for the best experience.

Hope this helps a few more people save the hours it took me to figure this one out.

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Quickly Archiving Mail with Outlook 2013 when using Outlook.com

Third post in a series of posts on how to single-click (or swipe/tap) to Archive mail when using Outlook.com.  The first covered how to swipe-tap to archive in iOS 8, and the second covered on how to set up an Instant Action to mouse over and click to Archive a mail on the web client. 

This post covers the most famous email client of them all: Outlook.  And most specifically Outlook 2013.  As mentioned in the first post, the pre-setup for this one is to create a folder called Archive in your mailbox. I covered how to do this this in the iOS8 post.

With Outlook 2013, there is a Quick Steps box.  You’ve probably never noticed it, it’s at the top, on the ribbon.  Well, it’s a set of customizable actions, where the Outlook team has taken the liberty of defining ones for you, mostly destined for business.  If this is the first time you’ve used these, take a look around, they are really powerful. Even on a personal account.  For example, I have one called “To Wife” which just forwards the email to my wife.  I do this a lot when I get an email on something that she should know, but I digress.  Here is what my personal account looks like:

Here’s how to set up the Archive one Quick Step

1. Click on the Create New button in the Quick Steps box (you may have to scroll down using the arrows to see it), it’s depicted above.
2. Fill out the Quick Step, with your Name, and any number of actions you want to happen, it’s like a mail macro!  This is how mine is set up.  You can also assign a short cut key if you’re a keyboard kowboy.
3. Click on Finish.

You’re Quick Step is ready to use.  Simply select the email you want to Archive and hit the new Archive Quick Step button, and the mail gets marked as read, and placed into your Archive folder.

Related Posts

• Quickly Archiving Mail in iOS8 when using Outlook.com
• Quickly Archiving Mail from the Outlook.com Web Client

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Backing up your Contacts from the Cloud

I can’t stress how important backing up is, I even have a special tag just for tips and tricks with backup, across various technology. 

So you might think, well, my contacts are *in* the cloud, so they are safe right?  Wrong!  If you don’t take backups into your own hands, you can have issues down the road, even with all the resiliency built into these Cloud services, you can loose data, here are just a few ways:

• The Delete key could get stuck on your wireless keyboard and end up deleting a majority of your contacts in an instant, which then syncs to your service and then instantly to all your devices (this happens in my inbox all the time when my keyboard battery is low). (don’t have this? learn how to set it up here)
• You could get hacked, be that @Matt or @N style, or simply by a script kiddy (you’ve enabled 2-factor authentication for your account already right? (Outlook.com, GMail.com)
• You could get a virus that deletes, corrupts or worse (encrypts) your data so you can’t access it
• You could cause yourself to get locked out of your account, maybe because you broke the Terms of Use?
• The cloud service can make a mistake and delete your files (although it’s likely they can get it back, this is hours of support calls)

So, it’s in your best interest to do your own backup, and manage your data on your own, even in a cloud service.  I keep my Contacts in the cloud and I backup periodically (manually, but all the same, it’s periodically).  What would be great if these services did this monthly and emailed it to you…. a request in progress!

This is how I do it with Outlook.com

• Browse on over to https://people.live.com and log in
• On the title bar at the top, choose Manage and click on Export for use with Outlook.com and other services.
• This will prompt you to download (or automatically download) a file called OutlookContacts.csv. which is a coma separated values file that contains pretty much every important field that is in your contacts.  This is what you have to save in a safe place.

If you loose your contacts for whatever reason, you can use this file to work on importing them into another app or the same service but different account, etc.

This is how I do it with GMail.com

• Browse on over to https://www.google.com/contacts/ and log in
• On the More drop down, select Export… to start the process
• Choose the best format that you want to export in.  I think that Outlook CSV is the most widely used format, but you may wish to export in all formats, or specific formats to meet your needs.
• This will prompt you to download a contacts.csv (or automatically download it), and this is the file you want to keep safe. 

There are multiple ways to import these files if your data is lost… more on that to come, but at least you doing this if only once a year, will save you a lot of hassle if you run into trouble.

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Checking your sign-in history in Outlook.com

Well, I thought I knew everything about Hotmail..err.. Outlook.com there was to know, but instead I was talking to a friend today who said that a month or so ago, someone tried to access his account from Chili. Wait, what?! how does he know this?

Your Microsoft Account stores all the successful and unsuccessful log in attempts in your profile for you to view at any time.  Simply browse over to https://account.live.com and log in, then click on Recent Activity.  You can scroll through each one if you want, or just scroll until you find an Incorrect Password Entered or a weird Location.  Like this one in my account:

Wow, someone attempted to log in to my Outlook.com account from Poland, good thing I have 2-factor auth enabled.  So if they did have my password for whatever reason, they’d still need my cell phone to actually get the second auth factor… which I have right here with me… aka, not in Poland.

Kind of nice there is an audit trail.  If one of the successful log ins wasn’t you, you can contest it right there and Outlook.com will help you take evasive action!

Have fun snooping on your snoopers!

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How to fix Outlook's Jump Lists

I'm a big fan of the Jump Lists in Windows 7/Windows 8.  I use them a lot to get to key documents and most importantly start a new mail message or new calendar request with Outlook 2013

It's super easy to just right-click, and then select New E-mail Message, and you're off to the races, no need to make Outlook the foreground or anything. 

However, twice now I've found this list corrupted, I right click and there is just the bottom three, and the "task" available is a "mailto:a_lot_of_garbage", and it does nothing.  Productivity drops instantly.  

I did however managed to find this support article on tasks missing once Outlook is pinned to the task bar.  It provides two work arounds, both times the first one worked.  Instead of the backup, I just renamed the "LastUILanguage" key and re-opened Outlook. 

Method 1: Delete the LastUILanguage registry value

To export and delete the LastUILanguage registry value, follow these steps:

1. Unpin the Outlook 2013 icon.
2. Exit Outlook 2013.
3. Use Regedit to export the following registry key:
   
   
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook
4. After you export the Outlook registry key, delete the LastUILanguage registry value.
5. Start Outlook 2013, and then re-pin the icon.

Method 2: Export and delete the Setup registry key

If method 1 does not resolve the issue, export and delete the Setup registry key. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Unpin the Outlook 2013 icon.
2. Exit Outlook 2013.
3. Use Regedit to export and then delete the following registry key:
   
   
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Setup
4. Start Outlook 2013, and then re-pin the icon.

Hopefully this helps you....

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How to Share Hotmail Calendars between two or more people

I’m a huge user of Hotmail. It’s where I store my personal email.  I looked at hosting it in Office 365, but to have to pay for one mailbox or a few mailboxes for personal use is kind of cumbersome.  There is no doubt that Office 365 is better for businesses, but for personal use, Hotmail is just fine for me.

However, there are some features that *just happen* with Office365, that don’t necessarily happen in Hotmail, like Calendar sharing.  I’ve started using my Hotmail calendar for anything personal that I need to track, and then create a calendar request to my work calendar if it’s during business hours (like a Dr’s appointment).  My wife actually uses her Hotmail calendar to track her work schedule.

My wife is bad at remembering to update digital calendars, so once/month, I perform secretary duties, which just makes both our lives easier.  But the key is I update her calendar, from my account.  We can also view each other’s calendar on our PCs, our iPads and our SmartPhones.  Here’s how.

1. From each account you want to share, go to Hotmail.com, log in, and click on your Calendar.
2. Click on the Share link above your calendar
3. Change the Don’t share this calendar (keep it private) to Share this calendar
4. When you select Add People you can select from your address book of people to share from and how much access you want that person to have.  For example, I had my wife give me co-owner access so I could update her calendar once/month with all the items she writes down in her day planner, and I gave her view details: 
5. Then hit Save all the way down at the bottom of the page.

The beauty with this is the calendar, with your access level just pops into your calendar list, you can choose to overlay it in your calendar (default), or just uncheck it.  Given that I want to know what my wife and daughter are up to, I just keep it active.  Then at a glance I’ll know if my wife is working on Friday or not and if I can go to soccer practice.

Even further into the beauty of Hotmail calendaring, is now this is accessible from all the different calendar views that you might use.  For example, if you use an iPhone or an iPad as we do in this house, you get your Hotmail calendar’s right there on your phone.

Additionally, if you use the Outlook Hotmail Connector (the primary reason I use this is for the calendar), then you can see all of your chosen calendar’s in the single Outlook view.  Which makes it for even easier update, select the calendar you want to update, and then just type into the calendar like you would with any Outlook calendar.

And yes, I am anal about my calendar’s, so I even make them all the same colour on all the views/devices.  My work calendar is always blue, my home calendar is always brown, Kendra’s calendar always yellow (except yellow doesn’t look good in the Outlook view).

I highly recommend sharing calendars for people you are with a lot, especially a spouse, it just makes life easier for us to stay in touch and know what’s going on.

As a final note.  If you wanted just do a 1-time send of your free/busy information to someone, Hotmail has you covered there.  I have yet to use this feature, because my personal calendar just isn’t that packed, and not everyone is as religious about their calendars as I am.  But on that same Share tab, Hotmail serves up all the personalized links and you can choose which one to send

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Outlook 2010 Speed Tip: Using the Quick Step Box

Outlook 2010 has been out for a while, but one of the more recent features I started to depend on to make email faster for me is the Quick Steps box on the dialog:

The Quick Steps bar allows you to make quick and customized operations on pieces of email that you have in your inbox.  There are a bunch of default ones that I use all the time, and I’ve also created a few new ones myself. 

Let’s first talk about how to use it, it’s pretty simple.  If you have a message you want to take action on, simply make sure it’s collected and select the one you want.  If you want to reply and delete it, simply click that button.  A reply message is opened to the individual, and the original message is deleted.  It’s that simple. 

Let’s say we often move mail to a specific folder in our inbox, and it involves selecting the message, dragging it to a folder that may or may not be collapsed in the tree view, and then dropping it there.  Instead, we can create a new Quick Step for this.  To do that simply:

1. Select the Create New Quick Step
2. Give the Quick Step a name like “Move to Follow Up”
3. Select Move to a folder, under the Actions drop down. 
4. Then select the folder in the drop box that appears that you want to move the message to. 

And that’s it.  You can additionally assign a short cut key, give it tool tip text if you have complicated rules, or even add additional actions.

It’s made my life easier, with the amount of messages I get each day, I highly suggest checking out the Quick Steps.  Allows you to cut through email pretty fast.

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