How do I remove pop-up: Unfortunately, Google hangouts has stopped

Maarsch

Honorable
Sep 14, 2012
59
0
10,610
I disabled Hangouts on my motorola moto g (1st gen) because I don't use it and since the update to 5.1 something in the google play family reduced the battery life of my phone to 6 hours (google play services used to be >50% of the battery use and it would drop 10-15% in 5 minutes when . . . something).

Now, I get this pop-up: "Unfortunately, google hangouts has stopped"
Which is
A) Good, because I turned it off and it shouldn't be working.
B) Annoying.

I have cleared the cache
I have removed it from disabled list, checked in, checked out and put it back on the disabled list.
I've restarted the thing a couple of times

The pop-up has shown itself when I have started chrome, halfway through using the calculator, halfway through reading a webpage and in the middle of a whatsapp sentence. So far I have failed to make the thing appear on command.

So questions:
1) How do I stop that pop-up?
2) What is causing it? I'm currently working on the assumption something else on my phone is trying to access hangouts, which is what prompts the pop-up.

I have play books, services and store still running, while having disabled the movies, music and newsstand. There's a bunch of other google stuff still running as well of course; contacts and stuff.
Battery life is back over 2 days (2 days in I'm at 43%).
 

Maarsch

Honorable
Sep 14, 2012
59
0
10,610
I'm not the android master, but normally you do that by going to the all apps thing, pressing long on it and dragging it to the top of the screen where it should say uninstall, right?
At least that is what it does with some other apps.
With Hangouts the top of the screen says "App info"
 
You can uninstall it a few ways. The easiest way is to just do it through the Play Store, since that method is the same regardless of what phone you're using. If you're using an up-to-date version of the Play Store, go to the home page and swipe right from the left side of your screen. This will bring up a navigation menu. Got to "My Apps". From here, just find the entry for Hangouts. Tap it. Hit "Uninstall", right on the top, next to "Open".
 
Ah. My apologies then. Honestly never seen Hangouts baked into the system like that, but I guess they've changed that. If that's the case, the only way to remove it is to gain root access.

Going back to that annoying notification issue, the only other Google apps or services I can think of that might be trying to access Hangouts are: "Google Contacts Sync", "Google App", and "Google Play Services". Going by the details you've given though, I doubt it's any of that.

Sorry I can't be of more help, but this one's got me stumped. Too many factors and Android variations to consider. It is weird that Hangouts is causing your battery drain though, because although it is known to use a bit more juice, what you've described is definitely abnormal. The only logical explanation I can come to is that a background app or service is continually trying to access Hangouts information, which would explain your current issue as well.
 

Maarsch

Honorable
Sep 14, 2012
59
0
10,610
The battery drain issue has been something which has prompted its share of threads over the internet and seems to be something that showed up with 5.0/5.1. There are some solutions floating around, but they don't seem to be universal solutions.
I don't know if it is hangouts, but something running through google play services did (and now doesn't. If I was in an investigative mood I might re-enable one at a time to track it down, but I'm not feeling that right now)

The hangouts things is equally popular on tech forums, and equally unsolved.

But thanks for your suggestions, at least. It made perfect sense to try and uninstall. I wish the way these things worked was more transparent (to me?).
There must be an interdependancy list somewhere on the web. "Google hangouts communicates to google.com through google services" or something.
And I'll probably root this one when I move on (first time android user, so I don't want to mess things up before I have a replacement) and use what I learned on that one. The level of control on these things is really disappointing.