Please answer the following questions for yourself before submitting an issue

• Filters were updated before reproducing an issue
• I checked the knowledge base and found no answer
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AdGuard version

4.12.81

Environment

• Device: Samsung Galaxy S23+
• OS version: Android 16

HTTPS filtering

• yes, I do

Root access

• yes, I have it

Integration with AdGuard VPN

• yes, I do

Routing mode

Local VPN

Ad Blocking

No response

Privacy

No response

Social

No response

Annoyances

No response

Security

No response

Language-specific

No response

Other

No response

Which DNS server do you use?

Custom DNS

DNS protocol

DNS-over-QUIC

Custom DNS

nextdns.com

What Stealth Mode options do you have enabled?

No response

Issue Details

Steps to reproduce:

1. Run AdGuard in integrated filtering (local VPN) mode.
2. Idle the device screen-off for 1–2 h.
3. adb shell dumpsys alarm → observe *walarm*:com.adguard.android.watchdog.CHECK_ALIVE firing repeatedly at its configured interval with flags=0x9.

Expected Behavior

The watchdog should not hold the device out of deep sleep via an exact, unthrottled, Doze-bypassing alarm on a short interval and ensure the watchdog setting actually stops/adjusts the alarm when changed.

Actual Behavior

With AdGuard running, the device suffers heavy idle (screen-off) battery drain — about 5%/hour in a controlled idle window, well above a normal idle baseline. The watchdog wakes the device repeatedly at its configured interval, around the clock, preventing it from settling into deep sleep.

Screenshots

No response

Additional Information

The wakeups come from AdGuard's protection watchdog. From dumpsys alarm:

tag=*walarm*:com.adguard.android.watchdog.CHECK_ALIVE
type=RTC_WAKEUP window=0 exactAllowReason=permission repeatInterval=0 count=0 flags=0x9
operation=PendingIntent{... com.adguard.android startService}

• repeatInterval=0 with a fresh origWhen each cycle → a one-shot alarm that re-arms itself each interval.
• The alarm is exact (exactAllowReason=permission) and carries flags=0x9 = FLAG_STANDALONE | FLAG_ALLOW_WHILE_IDLE_UNRESTRICTED, so it bypasses Doze throttling and fires unthrottled while the device is idle.
• AdGuard receives this unrestricted treatment because, as the active VPN, its UID is auto-added to the system power allowlist (mDeviceIdleWhitelist).

Measured evidence:

• In a focused CPU-wakeup capture, ~89% of all device wakeups (530 of 597) were attributed to AdGuard's foreground service; kernel wake source is the PMIC RTC alarm (pm8xxx_rtc_alarm).
• In an Airplane-Mode + Wi-Fi/BT-off run, every other subsystem (Wi-Fi, sensors) was silent for ~1h54m while this alarm kept firing on its interval — confirming a local, network-independent alarm.
• The CHECK_ALIVE tag appears thousands of times across the battery-history dump, consistent with its short configured interval (thousands of fires per day).

Additional finding: disabling the watchdog in settings did not stop it.