yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] drothenberger:
I don't know. To be honest, I wasn't willing to run my phone without that daemon and with the lags long enough to find out. I get this problem maybe once every 3-4 days.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Yze:
had this exact same problem, went to my battery settings and saw that Android System was juicing a ton of power. used betterbatterystats and saw that gsiff was whoring up my power. powered off the phone completely, turned it back on, and now its gone. hopefully it doesnt show up again. i have motions off and auto rotate off. i wonder if turning on auto rotate brings it back?

also.. ive had weird random issues with the display not sleeping correctly. i have it set for 30 seconds and sometimes if i just leave it there, it stays on. could this be cus of the work of gsiff? ive had this problem with 3 diff custom roms and even the stock rom.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mobilehavoc:
Anybody getting this who does NOT have adfree or an app that blocks ads using your host file ? I've noticed every hot reboot occurs during a time that the syst and app is trying to make a network connection so hoping that might be it.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] J M L:
I AM using adfree, and I get this problem. I will revert adfree, reboot, and then see if it comes back.

If somebody knows of a way to induce a hot boot, then it would be faster to test this. I can often go days between problems...
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mobilehavoc:
Unfortunately for me it's been happening every few hours, sometimes even minutes after a power cycle. I'm hoping it's agree because apart from this issue the phone runs great.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] fooldog01:
I get it and I do not have any ad-blocking.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mobilehavoc:
I think it happens much less frequently without rooting and making changes to the system. I'm getting it really frequently right now. Its not a launcher issue and most likely a kernel panic or issue.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] obutto:
Just chiming in again...

Sounds like my old phone there. I would get it every day at minimum...

My new phone still hasn't had this problem. Would suggest you to try looking towards a new device via exchange/warranty.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] fooldog01:
I may have something to contribute. I seem to have made it stop without rebooting the phone. I did several things so I can't be sure which (if any, honestly) solved the problem. First thing I did was go to motion settings, which I have always had turned off, and disable the one for swiping your hand to screenshot, thus disabling every setting under that menu. I toggled GPS and Autorotate. I disabled both accuweather processes, Talk and Media Hub. I ended Kies Air on the multitasking screen. My Kies Air ALWAYS shows me how to "shake to scan" even though I check to not show again everytime. Hope this is helpful in some way.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mobilehavoc:
I've now gone around 24 hours without the problem since I stopped using adfree. I'm not saying this is going to solve the problem in anyway at all but at least it's made things better. When I had been using adfree it would happen sometimes in hours and sometimes in minutes.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] VirtuaPirate:
Ditto

You know what? I can vouch for what you just said. Even I observed the fact that it happened everytime a n/w connection is to be established. Even I will disable adfree for time being and report how everything goes at my end.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mobilehavoc:
But if you fix the hot boot issue then you basically fix the gsiff daemon issue. Since I removed adfree I've been stable for 2 days. I might still have the issue but it's not as frequent. When I first got the phone it ran for over 2 weeks of hard use without an issue so I think the phone can be quite stable.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] sKoWN_kAT:
I'm also running AdFree... (don't know if that has anything to do with it) Getting gsiff_daemon runaway on "hot reboot". Now whenever I get a hot reboot, I launch system tuner and kill gsiff_daemon. Battery life has improved a bit but its kind of a hassle.

I froze AdFree today with TiBu. We'll see how it goes.....
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mobilehavoc:
No freezing adfree does nothing alone. Go to adfree and first revert to stock. Once you're sure the hosts file is back to stock then you can freeze it.

The file is etc/hosts

View it with a text viewer, there should only be one line which says "127.0.0.1 localhost"
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] sKoWN_kAT:
Now I don't think AdFree has anything to do with it. I just got gsiff_daemon burnin up my phone (monitoring cpu usage) and I noticed gps was having a hard time locking in..... Pulled down the notification bar, killed gps, and gsiff went away! Its gotta be tied to gps somehow
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mobilehavoc:
Doubt it I can use GPS day and night without the issue. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with network access.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] J M L:
gsiff_daemon is related to the sensors, so I did a test to see if it effects GPS. At least right now, on my phone, having a runaway gsiff_daemon does not seem to prevent GPS from getting a lock. It took 9 seconds to get a GPS lock, then I ran pkill system_server, let the phone do it's thing for a few minutes, confirmed gsiff_daemon was going crazy, and got a GPS lock in 5 seconds.

Now, I've definitely had my phone hot boot when using Google Maps. If you think about it though, that is a pretty intensive process, which is using lots of different pieces of the hardware at once. A fault in any one of those could lead to system_server dieing and getting a hot boot. Having said that, I can only recall the phone hot booting during Google Maps once, and I've used Maps more frequently than that. I've also had it hot boot while in my pocket, not doing anything in particular, except the normal stuff the phone does in the background.

I've gone several days in a row without rebooting or getting a hot boot, both with and without an ad blocking hosts file in place. I can totally believe some app doesn't behave properly and causes problems when failing to connect to an ad server, but it doesn't seem to be an issue on my phone.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mobilehavoc:
I definitely think it's app related and that a poorly coded process maybe blocks while waiting for a response from a server that never comes, this causes other processes to not be able to use network and kernel kills the system server.

Or since default entry in adfree hosts is localhost maybe one of these apps causes an error using the loop back address that is not recoverable? I wonder if you use adfree but don't use loopback if it would make a difference.

It might not be the fix but for me with exactly the same apps installed as before where I was getting hot boots every few hours, days and sometimes minutes just by reverting the hosts file I'm at over 3 days now. :p
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] VirtuaPirate:
Well, after three days of usage since I disabled AdFree, mine has been pretty stable. No hot boots after that. I know AdFree is not the core problem and that others not using Adfree are facing it as well. But from what I believe, for us it was AdFree for others it might definitely be some other app that is the culprit. Like I said, how about listing all your installed apps, shortlisting the common ones and then tracing down the problem app from this list. Apps might not be the core issue here, but they sure do trigger the gsiff_daemon madness, is what I feel.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Hostage XII:
I'm having the same problem with gsiff_daemon. I don't have adblock installed and my phone just did a hotboot 10minutes ago.

UPDATE: I ended up killing the process. Nothing has crashed or I haven't seen it come up on the process list. Before it was at the top.I'm attaching some screens
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] fooldog01:
I had gsiff show up again and drain my battery today so I guess ignore my earlier post.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Hostage XII:
Try killing the process. That should stop it from consuming a lot of the CPU and should bring it down to about 2-4%.

Use system tuner from the market. Your phone needs to be rooted for the app to work.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] storm81456:
I am fairly certain it's related to having wifi on. I ran into the gsiff runaway problem last week while I was up in Canada. I had my data turned off to avoid roaming and had wifi on the whole time. During the two days I had a few hot boots and gsiff ran away every time it hot booted. I've been using adfree since the day I got the phone and had not had the gsiff problem until that trip. Since then I have rarely had wifi on (4G is a ton faster than my home network connection) and I have not had a hot boot or had a gsiff runaway. Somehow it has to be a network connectivity issue.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mobilehavoc:
I'm now 5 days of uptime since I removed adfree and I always use wifi a ton, never turn it off. It's definitely some network connectivity issue but it's not wifi,
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Hostage XII:
I don't think its WiFi related. When I got it and the hot boots my WiFi wasn't on. All I had was 3g. I'm with sprint and I was running the freezas ROM. Now I'm running AOKP jelly bean ROM and I don't get the gsiff.

Try troubleshooting it by turning your WiFi and data off. Then head over to settings>developer>show CPU usage.

CPU usage should now be shown.

Next preform a hot boot. Most ROMs have the option.

As soon as the screen come back on head over to settings>developer>show CPU usage disable and reenable it.

When the processes come up see if if gsiff is the first one. Again make sure wifi and data are off.

I would try but I'm running a different ROM that doesn't have the gsiff problem.

Sent from my Jelly Beaned Galaxy SIII
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] lowg:
This happened on my VZW Galaxy S3 also. For me Chrome hung up on loading up page -- after that noticed phone running really hot. Running top in terminal showed that gsiff_daemon using 50% cpu (maxed out one core?).

Will keep on eye on this thread, this is the first time this has happened to me.

Only recent changes I have made was freezing two more apps I thought was bloatware -

wssyncmlnps

SyncMLSvc

Might just be a coincidence but I'm defrosting those to see if it comes up again.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] naddie:
I have an AT&T S3, and I have the same problem. After hot-booting via my ROM's shutdown menu, gsiff_daemon ramps up it's craziness.

Rebooted the phone (via the shutdown menu), and everything is fine. Made sure that while it's still fine, I did a hot-boot again - and gsiff_daemon goes crazy again. It's repeatable.

First, we need to find out what is causing the unexpected hot-boots, because the intentional ones are also causing a problem. Second, we need to find out why hot-booting is causing gsiff to go crazy.

I know my phone sometimes hot-boots on it's own while in my pocket because I see a gap in the battery history - sometimes two - before I charge up at night. I never charge after the first unplug in the morning. I always plug in at night when I'm ready to sleep.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Hostage XII:
Try what I said earlier. Disable your data and hotboot. Others said they believe its related to WiFi or data. I don't think it is though.

As you guys have said, when you hot boot it goes crazy. Yet when you reboot it doesn't show up. Before it was using 50-55% of my CPU. I'm on a different ROM now.

What ROMs are go guys on?

Sent from my Jelly Beaned Galaxy SIII
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] naddie:
The first time I did it, I was not on WIFI (it was off). I just turned off packet data and hot-booted my phone - gsiff_daemon reappears with a vengence. Repeatable even with data off.

I don't know if this is related, but when I hotboot, I get a new message notification "Hidden sender address:". When I pull down on the notification shade and hit it, it goes to a New Message in SMS (as if I was starting a new SMS message). It won't go away even after hitting it, but swiping the notification away makes it go away.

Not sure if that's related.

EDIT: Also did it with Airplane Mode on. Same deal.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Hostage XII:
Alright so from this we can rule out it that it has to do with packet data or WiFi. I never received the hidden sender SMS notification.

Sent from my Jelly Beaned Galaxy SIII
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] lowg:
Assuming everyone gettings is either using stock TW, or a rom based off TouchWiz at this point. What I've been doing is unfreezing some Samsung apps one by one to see if that will help stability.

Can someone please clarify the extact steps to replicate the problem and I can do some more testing.

Also when you guys say "hotboot" does that mean running the 'reboot' command in a terminal or restarting phone via the shutdown menu?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] naddie:
I'm running a stock rooted & deodexed Samsung ROM (UCLG1). Someone must've extended the power options as well, because if you go to Restart, it gives you the option to reboot, recovery, download mode, hotboot, etc.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] sKoWN_kAT:
I'm able to get a hot reboot by killing EITHER system/bin/media_server or system/bin/surfaceflinger in system tuner. I do that while showing cpu processes via settings>developer options>show cpu usage.

Once it reboots, gsiff_daemon will go crazy. I haven't seen gsiff in days since I toggled off gps.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Hostage XII:
I think this is touchwized related. Try flashing an AOSP ROM and see if you still get the gsiff problem. Chances are that you won't. Just remember to make a nandroid just in case.

Sent from my Jelly Beaned Galaxy SIII
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] lowg:
Thanks kat

strange thing is that I've been getting the gsiff issue without experiencing a hotboot... just read through entire thread and it seems this is the sure way to replicate it so will do some more testing and report back

Sent from my Galaxy S3
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] naddie:
Well, the whole point is to find out what is causing it, not to go to another ROM.

It's been determined that gsiff is not an issue on AOSP ROMs (probably because it does not have gsiff - I dunno...)... been determined it's a Samsung/Touchwiz issue, so custom ROMs based off stock ROM are seeing this, too.

Again, mine is stock rooted & deodexed. Other than that, it is not customized (except the person who did that ROM extended the power options... hmmm... wonder what else he/she changed...)
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] lowg:
Exactly. Also interesting that it is happening across the different carrier builds.

I'm running the stock Verizon GS3 just rooted by adding Superuser binaries and besides that only change I've done is to freeze some apps, will try to restore them all to see if that makes a difference.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Hostage XII:
I didn't got to another ROM because of it. AOKP was released when I started having this problem so I went to try that ROM out and it became my daily driver.

Anyways that gsiff process is found in /system/bin if I remember correctly. Like I said you can delete it but it will only solve your problems momentarily.

Sent from my Jelly Beaned Galaxy SIII
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mobilehavoc:
Since I removed adfree, I'm now on day 8 of uptime without a single issue. Same apps and usage. Previously I was getting the issue every few hours or even more often. Definitely some type of network issue
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] jcejohnson:
FWIW, I disabled AdAway last night & ye old daemon ran amok this afternoon.

Thanks to whomever posted the tip about killing it with System Tuner, that's much less annoying than rebooting the phone!
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] lowg:
Make sure you run the revert option to restore the hosts file. Just disabling it is not going to help...

Havoc thanks for the update will try that to see if it helps to avoid the issue but as others have said there is a problem with hot booting that will cause the gsiff issue as well so we still need to determine root cause...

Sent from my Galaxy S3
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] jcejohnson:
Yep, did that & verified that /etc/hosts had only the local host entry. I re-enabled ad blocking & flashed Nostalgia 7.3 this evening. (I've had the problem with stock, Nostalgia 7.1 and 7.2.) I still have most of the bloatware, I may rip that out & see if it makes a difference. I very much suspect that gsiff_daemon has a bug that is triggered by the hotboot but what is causing the hotboot? Random hotbooting would seem to be a bug in itself. Even so, eliminating the hotboot just masks the gsiff bug by not triggering it. Wish I had the source...
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Hostage XII:
You're welcome:) hit the thanks button if I helped :p

Sent from my Jelly Beaned Galaxy SIII
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] naddie:
Ah, the extended power options is not from my ROM. It's from ICS Domination theme (http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1746427).

Regardless, it looks like it is happening to others as well.

What do you momentarily? If you delete (or rename) the file, wouldn't the issue go away permanently since the file won't be available for whatever it is to call on it?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Hostage XII:
It will only go away until you reboot or hotboot. Then it comes back. That's what's confusing me.

Sent from my Jelly Beaned Galaxy SIII
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mbze430:
I have to say this one is a REAL bugger. Reboot and killing the process is only a temporary solution as it reappears on its own. For weeks now I still haven't been able to reproduce a way that definitely brings gsiff_daemon to go haywire.

Definitely need to stomp this bug.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] eagle63:
This just happened to me today. Glad to see there's at least a thread about it here. For what it's worth, I DID enable NFC yesterday for the first time since I've owned the device. Not sure if that's related (probably not) but I thought it was worth mentioning.

So let me guess.. there's no way to contact Samsung to file a bug report. All we can do is contact our carrier who will cluelessly tell us to factory reset or get a new phone.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] lowg:
Here is the test case that always replicates the issue:

Force a hotboot (kill system_server or surfaceflinger process)

Looks like anytime the system hotboots the problem occurs. Although I've seen it happen in cases where I did not get a hotboot, the hotboot method will surely recreate the problem.

Root cause is still not yet determined though.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] naddie:
Happened to me again. This time I reflashed the stock rooted & deodexed ROM, but kept data. I turned on WIFI to use it, then turned it back off when I was done. I went to DoggCatcher for a moment, and everything was unresponsive for a bit, then it hotbooted unexpectedly. Of course, as expected, gsiff_daemon roar its ugly head afterwards.

I'm going to try the stock rooted & deodexed ROM but this time delete data to see if it's something I installed. If I can still reproduce it, I will flash a completely stock ROM (non-rooted, odexed, stock bootloader-no CWM reocovery.... basically back to AT&T stock ROM) and see if I can reproduce it.

Again, I'm on an AT&T S3, and using this ROM:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1779136

Of course, same problem as the OP but on T-Mo.

If we can determine that it is happening even on a 100% stock ROM, then I'm starting to wonder if I need to replace my phone (since it's not happening to everyone - otherwise there would be a bigger stink that just us here).

EDIT: Scratch that - I may have to use a ROOTED but ODEXED ROM because I won't be able to force a hotboot if I'm not at least rooted.

I figure if it's something causing the hotboot which then causes the gsiff_daemon, leaving it unrooted may solve the hotboot issue if it's a dumb rooted app I installed SIMPLY because I won't be able to run any rooted apps.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] sKoWN_kAT:
Alright guys just throwin this out there as an update..... I havent see gsiff since I turned gps off..... I defrosted and updated AdFree yesterday and still haven't seen gsiff. Im going to re enable motion today and see how it goes. Battery life has GREATLY improved since toggling gps. This is just my experience, it may not be the same for everyone. I just wanted to let everyone know about this to help narrow it down so maybe we can figure out the root cause of frickin gsiff_daemon :o
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Hostage XII:
Hotboot your phone while having "Show CPU usage" enabled. It should pop right up again. Then kill it using "System Tuner" on the market. Gsiff is not GPS nor adfree related.

Anybody want to attach a log cat of the hot boot?

Sent from my Jelly Beaned Galaxy SIII
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] naddie:
Well, I wiped data and now I'm clean with stock rooted deodexed ROM. Hot booted by killing finger fling. Same gsiff_daemon issue.

I'm going to rain clean and only reinstall apps I need to see if I can at least reduce the amount of unexpected hot boots.

PS: I hate the Samsung autocorrection keyboard! Had a hell of a time typing this.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] sKoWN_kAT:
I don't know if you have read any of my posts, but yes, I have initiated hot boot many times.... And yes, gsiff_daemon does show up after hot boot. I guess I should have said that I haven't had any unprovoked hot boots since I turned gps off. Like I said I was just sharing my experience. Just trying to help. :D
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] naddie:
Just for giggles, flashed the latest CM10

preview and forced a hot boot (killed surface fling process)... no process came back eating up CPU. However, WIFI can't be turned back on until a proper reboot.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] J M L:
I posted just the gsiff related part of my hotboot log earlier, so here is the whole thing. Sorry about the zip format, but the plain text is too large to attach.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] J M L:
I have a theory for working around this problem, but I don't at the moment know how to implement it. Perhaps somebody who is familiar with ROM hacking will know how. I'll have to read some stuff before I can do it, and that might take a while. Anyway:

When system_server, surfacefinger, etc. die, one of the consequences is that a process called zygote is restarted. When zygote restarts, a bunch of other things also restart. Adding gsiff_daemon to the list of things that restart with zygote might fix the problem. Doing this involves editing init.rc, which should be easy, but the init.rc that is actually used at boot time is extracted from an image to the root directory. I do not know how to extract and repack the image (if ICS works this way).

gsiff_daemon itself is started from init.sensor.rc and is called the "GNSS/Sensor interface daemon". I suppose it has something to do with positioning http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNSS_augmentation#_
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] sKoWN_kAT:
This makes sense. When I was monitoring cpu processes, and I noticed gps was having a hard time locking in, that's also when gsiff appeared. Hot boot did not occur that time. That's when I toggled gps off and gsiff disappeared.... I still haven't encountered gsiff_daemon since then. I've also re enabled AdFree and motion with no sign of gsiff. I think we can rule those two out completely. It's been over a week now for me with gps off and no sign of gsiff_daemon.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] lowg:
What about launching gsiff_daemon process with a tool like Script Manager. It most likely will be too late since it will be after Android runtime loads (assuming it is intent based?) but figured it was worth a shot.

Busy at work now and will try it later...