I Found & Fixed an HTC Incredible Battery Bug

[liquidicem]

For some reason unknown to me my phone started sleeping again mid0day yesterday. This was after the calender stop worked and then didn't work anymore. I'm now sitting at 21:29 Up and 3:49 Awake!

I'll keep an eye on it through the day today.

 

[roninld]

I think this thread is onto something.

I noticed that my Uptime and Awake time were the same as well.

Killing apps with Astro didn't seem to do anything, so yesterday evening, I removed my Calendar app, when I charged my phone, I shut it off completely and let it fully charge. When I started it up again, I started Astro, and killed the Calendar process.

I had everything else on, GPS, Location, Syncing (Although I turned off Gmail Calendar and Contacts). And the phone was sleeping and battery life was great.

This morning, noticed that Awake time was again high. Had 12 hours Uptime, 6 Hours awake, Battery at 80%. Opened up Astro, and killed the last apps I was using last night, which was Mint, FireWallet, and Financisto. Nothing. Then noticed that Calendar process was active again. Killed that, and it looks like phone is actually sleeping again.

I also read yesterday in one of these threads that killing any process will enable the phone to sleep, but now I can't find the thread.

Anyway, just wanted to post my experiences with Uptime/Awake time on my phone and battery life.

Thanks OP and everyone else who commented.

 

[mntbighker]

After a HARD reset in which I lost all my customization the phone sleeps again. I have yet to even set up ANY accounts but it IS sleeping. So let the excruciating process begin. I will say that despite Apple's Nazi approach to Application control it's likely this would never happen on an iPhone. An open platform has a price. By the way I do not appear to need to kill the Calendar service to have the phone sleep. So presumably it's an interaction with obex or the act of killing "any service" that you guys are seeing improve your situation. So far I have only activated my Google account and changed virtually no other settings. WiFi is off (at work) and I have restarted to start the "clock" over again.

 

[johnperkins21]

After a HARD reset in which I lost all my customization the phone sleeps again. I have yet to even set up ANY accounts but it IS sleeping. So let the excruciating process begin. I will say that despite Apple's Nazi approach to Application control it's likely this would never happen on an iPhone. An open platform has a price. By the way I do not appear to need to kill the Calendar service to have the phone sleep. So presumably it's an interaction with obex or the act of killing "any service" that you guys are seeing improve your situation. So far I have only activated my Google account and changed virtually no other settings. WiFi is off (at work) and I have restarted to start the "clock" over again.

Did you use Exchange before? I'm wondering if it's an issue with the Exchange calendar.

Killing any process didn't work for me. I tried a few, but only the calendar helped. And stopping the Obex in the running process didn't help either, only doing a force stop or killing with a task manager (Astro worked for me).

 

[howarmat]

just so you all realize, if your awake time is not the same as up time and the phone is going to sleep, you will also not be getting email, weather updates maybe and other data processes. you will get calls and sms though. the emails when come in instantly when you wake the phone up though

 

[johnperkins21]

just so you all realize, if your awake time is not the same as up time and the phone is going to sleep, you will also not be getting email, weather updates maybe and other data processes. you will get calls and sms though. the emails when come in instantly when you wake the phone up though

Based on my testing, this is incorrect. Where did you get this information?

 

[howarmat]

its in various thread on many boards and i have seen it on my phone. You have to have an active data connection for many of the processes (which mean the "always on data" has to be check and on or constant wifi connection.

your phone goes to sleep because you uncheck some of these items and letting it sleep

Edit: we also might be discussing slightly different things here.

 

[johnperkins21]

its in various thread on many boards and i have seen it on my phone. You have to have an active data connection for many of the processes (which mean the "always on data" has to be check and on or constant wifi connection.

your phone goes to sleep because you uncheck some of these items and letting it sleep

Interesting. After my phone is done charging I'll have to run more tests, and verify that I'm not thinking of the time back when I had an issue with my phone constantly staying awake.

 

[mntbighker]

Did you use Exchange before? I'm wondering if it's an issue with the Exchange calendar.

Killing any process didn't work for me. I tried a few, but only the calendar helped. And stopping the Obex in the running process didn't help either, only doing a force stop or killing with a task manager (Astro worked for me).

I did not add my Exchange account back in yet but that was going to be next. It WOULD be typical if it was a Microsloth related issue. Since we moved to Exchange based mail at work it has been nothing but one nightmare after another. The question will be if it IS the Exchange calendar what to do about it? That is likely a deal breaker for most people. Does anyone know of a 3rd party Exchange client (pay or free) that could replace the built in? What features would be added or lost?

 

[Lefort1]

I'll give this a try, 10hrs of battery life a day is completely UNACCEPTABLE

 

[silasmarner]

I'm also seeing 10 hours of battery life on my new incredible. My times were 15 minutes apart. I'll be doing some testing based on this thread.

 

[howarmat]

Interesting. After my phone is done charging I'll have to run more tests, and verify that I'm not thinking of the time back when I had an issue with my phone constantly staying awake.

i just looked after i got to work. And now my phone IS still going to sleep even with data always on. I know i had an app that was keeping the phone awake 99-100% but thought the other settings also were keeping it awake too. i must have looked wrong.

 

[johnperkins21]

its in various thread on many boards and i have seen it on my phone. You have to have an active data connection for many of the processes (which mean the "always on data" has to be check and on or constant wifi connection.

your phone goes to sleep because you uncheck some of these items and letting it sleep

Edit: we also might be discussing slightly different things here.

I think we might be. I sent an email to my phone while it was sleeping, and the notification light is now blinking. Data always on is off, and I did a force stop on my calendar process to allow my phone to sleep. The phone still receives data it needs when asleep, and if it's awake for the same amount of time as it is up, or even really close, you likely have an issue.

Edit: However, it doesn't look like the widgets or the apps download the messages. Only the alerts happen when sleeping, which could be to save on battery life. So, it looks like we're both right and wrong.

 

[howarmat]

right the emails get the data immediately when you wake the phone up

 

[cdma]

I think we might be. I sent an email to my phone while it was sleeping, and the notification light is now blinking. Data always on is off, and I did a force stop on my calendar process to allow my phone to sleep. The phone still receives data it needs when asleep, and if it's awake for the same amount of time as it is up, or even really close, you likely have an issue.

Edit: However, it doesn't look like the widgets or the apps download the messages. Only the alerts happen when sleeping, which could be to save on battery life. So, it looks like we're both right and wrong.

If you get the application TaskPanel this is a non issue. You can set up your phone so that when you backlight goes off or you hit the power button to send your phone to sleep that any application, like calendar, shuts itself down automatically. I do this with all applications that don't need to be running and it saves on the battery. Taskpanel is the way to go!!!

 

[coolkp]

I had the same exact problem as the OP where my Up and Awake times were exactly/very near the same. I have my Exchange account using the HTC mail app and my calendar linked to Exchange and Google. After reading this thread, I have not changed anything on the phone except stopping the OBEX service.

I am on hour 10 of uptime and my phone has only been "awake" for 14 mins. which caused a drastic improvement in battery life.

I also have Moblie Data, GPS, Background Sync, and Always on Data selected and enabled. Hopefully a fix for this OBEX issue gets released soon.

 

[Odin3]

Has anyone found out for sure what unchecking the "mobile network always on" does. After much reading all I've found is conflicting statements.

I unchecked mine last night and got the best battery life so far today.

 

[howarmat]

Has anyone found out for sure what unchecking the "mobile network always on" does. After much reading all I've found is conflicting statements.

I unchecked mine last night and got the best battery life so far today.

you will lose data connections after 15-20 minutes if you arent touching your phone and nothing else calls for data during that time for some things including email, slaker/pandora etc. It will all come back instantly when hit the power button on top though

 

[Odin3]

Thanks Howarmat - I had read in the Background data thread where you say the same thing. Is there a thread you know of where this is discussed in detail?

I need gmail to be pushed within minutes for work and though it had worked fine today but didn't pay close enough attention to notice the 20 minute time out.

 

[Odin3]

HaHa - Just noticed that the email that you had posted just came through a second after I had picked up my phone and changed the ringer profile... almost 20 minutes late!

 

[pardonmyfreedom]

So here are my numbers today after manually killing the calendar process twice within the cycle. The process is running now actually, so the second kill might have made no difference. 27h up, 4.5h awake.

This is huge improvement in my uptime/awake ratio, which was at almost 1:1 when I first looked (~20hrs). My battery has seemed to last quite a bit longer as well, although I have played with it less.

I've never stopped the OBEX service, so killing the process seemed to work for me.

 

[mntbighker]

Since my factory settings hard reset today I have not killed any processes and my phone is sleeping fine. I have added my Exchange account and I'm seeing Google and Exchange calendars with no impact on sleep. I added the Friendstream widget and opened Friendstream adding Twitter, Facebook for HTC and Flickr... no more sleep. After more testing the prime suspect is Facebook for HTC. It seems I can use regular Facebook but it does not appear in the Settings account and sync list like the one for HTC. It's confusing to have both offered to you as well. I was restarting in between changes and the Facebook account was a repeatable killer of sleep.

Read that again... FACEBOOK FOR HTC appears to be the battery killer for me

BTW, I just got a system message about a pending HTC update as well.

 

[pkmn760]

I factory reset as well (which is a real pain ...), anyways I am still having this issue with no apps or anything...could it be possible for the first few hours for the phone to download stuff and stay awake? shold I give it a day to see if it fixes?

 

[johnperkins21]

I factory reset as well (which is a real pain ...), anyways I am still having this issue with no apps or anything...could it be possible for the first few hours for the phone to download stuff and stay awake? shold I give it a day to see if it fixes?

You say no apps, but I'm guessing you set up some accounts? Have you tried doing a force stop on the calendar app? It shouldn't need more than a few minutes to set everything up.

 

[pkmn760]

You say no apps, but I'm guessing you set up some accounts? Have you tried doing a force stop on the calendar app? It shouldn't need more than a few minutes to set everything up.

I am looking in the built in application manager under settings and I don't see a calendar app running.