It is practically an open secret that many smartphones have aggressive battery saving tactics, which often put background apps into sleep mode. Some of the Chinese mobile devices and Huawei phones in particular, tend to kill apps aggressively without following Android standards for background apps.

The primary known issues are: failure to send push notifications, the app not running properly in the background, the app appears to suddenly go into sleep mode.

Known Issues with the Heroes Nearby mobile app

If during the use of the Heroes Nearby mobile app, you experience issues with GPS-tracking or push notifications, then you probably have a problem that is solely attributed to the manufacturer of a particular mobile phone. These problems could be: GPS is not consistently active during an active SOS call, or not working at all; or you do not receive some, or any, push notifications (from the Heroes or “victims”).

Of course, there is always a possibility that there is a bug in our software so please be sure to report everything to our technical support so we can check it out and get it fixed.

Some solutions

Here are a few tweaks you can apply that may get things running smoothly – although there is no guarantee. Unfortunately, these proposed solutions do not work on all mobile phones that have these issues. Do not kill the messenger!

1. You can try “whitelisting” the app in your battery manager settings (this ensures that HN if not one of the apps that is “shutdown” in order to optimize battery life)

2. Make sure that in your notification settings that the app is set to “allow notification” and, if it is possible, and make sure to make it a “priority display”

Other known issues (in general)

Please note that bugs, crashes, and other issues are unavoidable, especially if you have an older phone. If you are having a number of problems that appear randomly in more than one app, it will be difficult to find the root of the cause. There may be a hardware component that is failing, the device may be overheating regularly, or a software upgrade could be causing some issues. Storage space can also be a contributing factor and should be checked.

If your phone is having several issues, then you can always try a factory reset. This resets the phone to its original configuration and you will have to re-install your apps and personal preferences. Make sure to back up all your data beforehand.

If you have found other solutions for any issues, please leave instructions in the comments for the Heroes Nearby community.