Users of the messenger Google Messages may have noticed an increased battery consumption as well as higher utilization of the smartphone in recent days. In fact, a bug in messenger is to blame, which is not so easy to recognize at first glance: The messenger forgets to close the camera and queries its live image the entire time, even in the background.
Google Messages has camera integration, as is the case with many messengers. With this built-in mode, an image can be taken directly in Messenger, which can be sent immediately and does not have to be saved in the gallery beforehand. This can be very convenient and usually works without major problems. However, for some time now, this feature has had a bug that makes the app simply forget to close the camera.
After taking a picture or video, the camera image disappears, but it is still queried by the app. This means that the camera is active without a break and thus some algorithms to improve the camera image do their job all the time. This was noticed by an increased battery consumption and a significantly warmer device. However, it was only discovered by the security function in Android 12, which informs about the use of the camera by the messenger.
Google hasn’t spoken out on the issue yet, but there are two simple solutions: either you quit the app completely via Task Manager, or you completely revoke its permission to access the camera if you don’t use it. Nevertheless, an update will probably not be long in coming.