I use a Samsung Galaxy S8+ phone with Android 9. I set my NMS app to scan the WLAN after connecting to it.
Under Android 8 this scan was done only when a new WLAN connection was established (which makes completely sense), but since Android 9 the scan takes place all over the day every time after I did not use the phone for a while and use it again.
First I thought that since Android 9 the WLAN is actually disabled every time the phone is locked and/or after a while of not using it. But Samsung told me that this is not true and I see that the WLAN name in the box on the top of my phone is always set, which means (at least it seems so) that the WLAN is not disconnected.
I cannot exactly tell what has to happen that the scan takes place, but even if I stay in the range of one specific WLAN the whole day, the scan is done multiple times. It's run when I just press the on switch to wake the phone up or open my cover (which does the same).
Does anybody else has this problem? Is there a solution?
I can set individual apps to "optimized" or "not optimized" in Settings - Apps - Special access. NMS is not optimized there which means no power saving features are enabled for NMS. This was always the case.
And yes, I can see which apps are consuming the most battery. Unfortunately these are global system apps or let's better say functions. I.e. I cannot see which apps really consume much battery. But I already set almost every app to "optimized" except for some which have to send me notifications immediately and not after an hour (e.g. mail app, WhatsApp and so on).
Thanks for the background.
Did you lower the optimization for the Wifi connections, or for NMS?
I do not know what you mean. I disabled the global energy saving mode. Then there is also the battery optimization for each app (but not WiFi in general). NMS was never set to "optimized" there.
I was wondering if you were able to adjust individual apps within the Battery Optimization settings in Android Settings. You might also be able to see what apps are using the most battery, and just optimize those apps.
Here is a little background story concerning the energy saving mode:
When I used Android 8, I always used the energy saving mode "highest performance", which is no energy saving. The battery lasted about 35-40 hours. I did not had the problem with NMS. Then I upgraded to Android 9 and suddenly my battery only lasted for 15-20 hours. Then I activated the first energy saving mode "optimized", which gave me 20-30 hours (still reduced comparing to Android 8).
Then I had the problems with NMS. But at this point I did not see a connection between the enery saving mode and the NMS scans. Well, I even can't tell you whether the scans maybe already occured with no energy saving, because I switched the mode shortly after upgrading to Android 9. As I mentioned earlier, I also have another app which showed that no WiFi connection is established.
Then I asked in the Samsung forums where users and moderators told me that WiFi is not disabled and it must be a problem with the apps. Then I came here. And as I wrote, the connection really was not disabled, because my router showed an active connection.
A lot of system and app updates later I decided to disable energy saving again (set it to highest perfomance) and then I realized some time later that there are only a few NMS scans now. At this point I already contacted the support and so I did not know whether there was an NMS update which fixed the problem. I cannot really tell whether the scans stopped right after disabling energy saving.
Did you lower the optimization for the Wifi connections, or for NMS?
I do not know what you mean. I disabled the global energy saving mode. Then there is also the battery optimization for each app (but not WiFi in general). NMS was never set to "optimized" there.
Did you find any useful information in the link from my contacts?
No. The article describes steps for fixing a non working or slow WiFi connection. But I never had any problems. WiFi was always fast and stable. Only NMS (and the other app) "thought" that WiFi is gone.
Sorry I missed battery optimization settings as a possible issue. With Android 9, they seem to have made the optimizations a little aggressive. This has caused issues with apps and the device features. Did you lower the optimization for the Wifi connections, or for NMS? I would try both.
Did you find any useful information in the link from my contacts?
The history page is completely empty. So no apps disabled/enabled WiFi.
I never had any WiFi connection problems (at least I did not notice) and these scans only occured when pressing the on/off button.
But since a while I disabled the energy saving mode (I changed it from "optimal" to "highest performance") and the amount of scans is reduced (it still scans from time to time although the WiFi connection has not been interrupted).
Or has any update of NMS been released addressing this issue?
@King555
This is what I have heard from my contacts. Please look through it and see if you have any history of wifi connections from apps that might explain any extra scans.
The feature scans every time a WiFi connection is made. To see if an app is causing WiFi to connect/reconnect, go to Settings > WiFi > Advanced > WiFi Control History. Take a look at the apps in there and it should tell user if an app is turning WiFi ON/OFF and it will allow user to prevent that app from doing this.
Some users have mentioned their WiFi connection is unstable since update to OS 9. If that is occurring then there are some troubleshooting steps here:https://www.technobezz.com/how-to-fix-galaxy-note-9-wi-fi-issues/

Yes, I am sure. I saw this notification only every time my phone connected to another WLAN. This happend every time my phone switched from a mobile connection to WLAN, for example when I arrived at home.
If I would not have seen the notification at all in Android 8, your theory could be right. But why did I see the notification before, when a new WLAN connection was actually established?
Are you sure it was not scanning before? As I have found, the latest version of NMS is just more verbose in the notifications it is presenting. These scans may have been happening all along, and unless you had NMS open, you would not have known a scan was being done.
I'm still waiting to hear on how often scans are done. Maybe NMS does scan every time the device comes out of sleep, to ensure there have been no changes in the network since you last accessed it.
The scanning on my phone occurs several times a day. When I check my phone every 5 minutes, the scan occurs every 5 minutes. And it did not happen before Android 9.
@King555
Just a quick update. I too now see that Wifi scanning notification on my Samsung tablet on Android 8.1. So it appears that NMS is just being more verbose about what it is doing in the background.
As for the frequency of the scans, my contact is trying to find out more on this. Personally, I find the network getting scanned most times I bring the device out of sleep. I do not use the device on a regular basis, so I do not know if this would happen if I opened it multiple times a day. I have noted that it scans the first time of the day I open it, but not on subsequent openings I do over the next 1 minutes or so. Maybe it is a once a day thing.
No, the scan runs and then the notification disappears. It's only visible when scanning happens.
The overall problem is not the notification, it's the constant scanning.
Just out of curiosity? After you see this notification, is it still available if you swipe down from the top of the screen to view any active notifications? If so, you should be able to get a screenshot of that for us.
After I hear back on this question, I can forward the information to my contacts.
Today I was finally able to do what you said. I enabled the debug log, waited for three WiFi scans, disabled the logging and sent the logs together with a short description of the problem, the times when the scanning occured, the link to this thread and my username to Symantec.
I think the notification you mean is that one you can disable in NMS. The entry in the settings is called "Continuous notification" with the description "Show security status"
Yes that is the notification I was referring to. I was just wondering if there was a similar notification for the wifi scanning you are seeing.
As you cannot get a screenshot, it might be worth sending logs to Norton to diagnose what you are seeing. Open the NMS app and tap the three bars at the top left. Tap on App Settings, and scroll down to the Logging section. Turn on Enable Debug Log. Then continue using your device until your issue happens again. After the issue has happened, go back to the Debug Log setting and turn it off, then tap on Send Error Report with log files. In your submission include your forum user name and a link to this thread.
If you do submit the logs, please post back here and I'll let my contacts know to look for them.
No, I do not clear it, it disappears after a short time (after the scan). Thats also why I cannot make a screenshot, it disappears too fast.
I think the notification you mean is that one you can disable in NMS. The entry in the settings is called "Continuous notification" with the description "Show security status" (I translated both texts, because I use the German version).
This is not the notification I mean. It also has another icon.
When I activate my phone or unlock it, I see a notification from NMS with a cross hair icon and the text saying that the WLAN is scanned.
Do you clear this notification each time you activate the phone? If not, it could be similar to the NMS notification "Scan Complete" I cannot clear that notification, and each time I unlock my device, the same notification is still there. Even though no new scan has been completed. If you cannot clear the notification, this is probably what you are seeing.
See if you can clear that notification, then allow your phone to sleep/lock. Then unlock the phone again to see if the message is there again.
As I noted, I do not have Android 9, yet, so it could be related to some changes to the OS.
Can you post a screenshot of that notification? Instructions to post screenshots can be found here
https://community.norton.com/forums/how-post-image-forums-0
NOTE that you cannot post directly from a mobile browser. What I do is take the screenshot on the device and email it to my PC, then post from there.
When I activate my phone or unlock it, I see a notification from NMS with a cross hair icon and the text saying that the WLAN is scanned.
I never saw this notification with Android 8, except when I really entered the range of another WLAN.
I have a status page of my router where I can see the connected WLAN devices. I checked it for several days now and the phone is always connected. If I manually disable WLAN on my phone, the status page immediately shows that no devices are connected. This means that the WLAN is not disconnected (what Samsung already told me). So it's only the NMS app which does its scan for an unknown reason. Well, "only" is not 100% correct, I have another app, which shows the name of the current WLAN on the home screen (as a widget) and this app switches from "not connected" to the current WLAN name if I activate my phone.
So its either a bug in two different apps or a strange behaviour since Android 9, which happens only on my phone.
Where are you seeing that the networks are being scanned so often? I find that if I tap on wifi security in the NMS app, the network will be scanned. If I move away from that page and go back after about a minute, it will scan again. This is on Samsung Tab A on Android 8.1.1.
My phone is unlocked and not locked to a specific carrier.
And I have the latest system updates installed, as well as all app updates.