Nokia Lumia Update: Windows Phone 7.8 Live Tiles Issues Identified, Include Battery, Data Drains

Microsoft has rolled out the Windows Phone 7.8 update, and issues have been reported.

According to WP7RootTools, Heathcliff74 noticed battery draining and storage issues. He didn't use his phone much on the day following updating to Windows Phone 7.8 and there were no apps running.

"Another thing I had noticed right after the update to WP 7.8 was that one of the pinned live tiles was empty," Heathclif74 wrote. "I did not really pay further attention to it and I assumed the app would be updated soon enough if this was a real problem. But now I realized, that live-tiles needed to be updated and not much else is using data at that moment."

Other users have reported tiles not updating correctly and either "bugging out or flickering," as WPSuperFanBoy noted.

HeathCliff74 further explained three ways to update the tile situation

ShellTile.Update(ShellTileData): "This method allows you to manually update the contents of the live-tile from within an app or a background-task of an app. Apps use this to create custom tiles. For example, a twitter client may register a background task, that checks the twitter-feed and write text-updates on the live-tile. I've had no problems using this functionality in both WP 7.5 and WP 7.8."

ShellTileSchedule.Start(): "This method allows to set a URL to a live-tile-image on an external host. The URL is fetched at predefined interfalls. I found that the Shell Tile Scheduler may start behaving erratically under some circumstances. The app from my previous blog-post, did in fact use this method. I have tried to reproduce this behavior in an app of my own. But I have not been able to isolate the situation that triggers this problem. If the problem occurs, there is a serious problem, that may lead to low performance of the phone and high bills from your mobile operator! This behavior seems to be specific to WP 7.8. So far I have not been able to reproduce it on WP 7.5 and WP 8."

HttpNotificationChannel.BindToShellTile(): "This method opens a channel to the Microsoft Notification Servers. External sources can post images, text or counters to the Microsoft Notification Servers. This will be routed to the phone. I found this functionality to be completely broken on WP 7.8. It is possible to send a text or counter. But as soon as an URL for a live-tile-image is sent to the phone, the phone immediately closes the endpoint to the server and nothing is updated. I found that when the app completely registers a new endpoint, the live-tile can sometimes be updated once and then the endpoint is closed again. In my case deleting the PushClient Endpoint registry-keys did not help and even a hard-reset did not resurrect the live-tiles. Live-tile notifications still worked only once, or not at all. On WP 7.5 this method just works as expected. I actually hope I did something wrong here. Or else I don't understand how this could ever get past the Microsoft Quality Assurance department."

Have you updated to the Windows Phone 7.8? Or thought about it until the latest issues? Have you considered or went through Heathcliff74's solution?

Let us know in the comments section below.

Credit/Source: WP7 Root Tool 

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