Help Battery being sucked away (Used for a week with no issue, now dies within hours)

[TechRaven]

Sorry I know there are 100 threads on battery issues... but

So I go to sleep with the phone next to me at 70% battery life, wake-up 2 hours later and the phones dead. This has happend twice now, before this battery life hasent been an issue.

I've used the phone for about a weeks and everything was great, until two days ago (not sure what happend, I did install a 16gb SDHC card).

If the 16gb SDHC card is whats causing the battery life to be good for ~2 hours unplugged with 0 usage, then this is useless..

The GPS is off, WiFi is off, signal strength is about -85dB.

Facebook is set to every 3 hours
Weather Every 6 Hours
Exchange is set to push with a 10kb attachment limit (doesnt seem to even work).


For an example I just charged the phone to 17%, unplugged it for 2m 27%, now at sub 9% battery..
Android - 56%
Cell - 20%
Display - 17%
Phone Idle - 7%


Right now this phone is as useful as a brick, i've uninstalled the weather app and a bunch of other 3rd party things that I thought could have been causing it, but this is the second time now.. My battery life sans being plugged in is around 2 hours tops, with or without using the phone.

Under battery usage the android system is usually over 60%.

Should I do a full reset and if so how do I go about doing that?
Is there something that anyone might guess it could be?

 

[dmiller2007]

In he battery stats, what is the awake time at compared to the up time? This problem seems like its usually something not letting your phone sleep.

 

[AGWednesday]

+1

 

[Rubik76]

Mileage varies, and I haven't used my phone for much today (other than checking email), but Android System is 6% for me, with a 5 hour uptime. I'm also at about 90% battery.

You have a rogue app... Install something like SystemPanel, and see if you can find out what it is. I belive Calendar is a common cause.

 

[daniel5on]

Definitely check your running processes , see if there is anything that has been running the entire time your phone has been on...

Try removing all widgets as well then put them back on one by one and see if you get any substantial battery drain from a specific app. Engadgets app did cause quite a bit of drain for me fyi... Just do some trial and error testing. I know its a pain but you gain quite a bit of knowledge of your phone when you do this.

 

[Refot_Sirk]

A lot of people have been having sleep problems when they add a Flickr account. This was true in my case. When I first got the phone I noticed a huge difference in my up time and my awake time. Then one day I noticed my battery started to drain quickly, and after reading a thread somewhere on this forum I read about the Flickr problem. I removed the Flickr account and my phone is back to normal.

 

[ecb]

Ive had similar issues and frustrations with the Incredible. First thing to check is to see if your awake time and up time are the same after you turn the phone off and on. Your awake time should be less than your up time when you look at the battery status. If it's not, then you have an application that is not allowing your phone to sleep and you'll need to uninstall that app (or live with the poor battery life)

Another issue ive had is that when I installed an application that kept my phone awake it would also cause the htc Facebook app to start keeping the phone awake. The only fix is to remove the facbook account and add it back. Once you restart the phone, I found that the phone would behave normally.

As much as I like HTC Sense, I'm getting frustrated by the fact that i've had to uninstall 2 useful applications because they don't play nicely with Sense. Also, there is definitely a bug in the htc facebook application that does not allow the phone to sleep.

If I have another useful app that i have to uninstall because of Sense, I'll hsve to seriously consider returning the Incredible for the Motorola Droid. Ive use the Droid before and it may not have the specs of the Incredible, but its rock solid and will get 2.2 well before the Incredible

FYI...

The apps that have kept the phone awake are the following:

Good For Enterprise
Got To Do Lite

 

[INTREPID-NY]

See this thread: http://androidforums.com/htc-incredible/72613-wont-sleep.html

Menu, Settings, About Phone, Battery. Write down the Awake Time on a piece of paper. Push the power button once quickly to make your phone sleep (not turn off). Wake your phone back up in 10 minutes. The Awake Time should be nearly the same. If it's not, you have a bad app installed. You will need to track it down and uninstall it. For me it was Accuweather.com

Most of these sleep problems are caused by apps. You just have to track it down. If you've been keeping an eye on your wake time, just start uninstalling the most recent apps. I recommend you use AppBrain Market Sync. http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.appspot.swisscodemonkeys.apps
This is a great app that coordinates with the website. You can view your installed apps by date and select apps to install and uninstall from the website.

Also Install "Spare Parts" from the market. Run and select Battery History and Change Other usage (top menu) to "Partial Wake Usage" and see if that turns up anything.

 

[TechRaven]

Hmm, it does seem like the awake/phone time are exactly the same, so I guess i've got some rogue app thats chewing up all the CPU and never letting it sleep.

The Facebook linking stuff is really useful, I don't care if it automatically updates but its a convenient way to link to face book contacts/get updates (on request). I don't need my phone buzzing every time someone finds a duck on farmville.

But are you saying just having the app enabled at all causes the phone to not sleep? Or what can I do that will allow the phone to sleep?

And the calendar, can I still use the cal functions at all? Is there something specific that causes it to be a problem? I'm ok with it syncing once a day automatically and doing updates by hand after that, its not like my cal is changing on a hourly basis or anything. But being unable to use the cal at all would be tragic.

As much as I love how neat the Incredible is, there are some things that HTC/google need to refine to just 'work' without extensive tweaking.. Coming from WinMo 6.1 some things like 'peak/off peak' times just seem like 'must have' features... why would I want my beeping at 3:30am when i'm supposed to be asleep?

I think i'm going to go for a system reset and be more careful about the apps I choose to install, I was playing around a ton and installed/uninstalled lots of useless crap and it seems to be in a pretty sore state at this point.

Hopefully after this reset it remains working, any tips of orders to link/add accounts? I have exchange/gmail/facebook that i'm mostly concerned with staying in sync (in order of priority).

I've seen some people say the wizards are flawed and to add the accounts later, is there any validity to this?

 

[Rubik76]

In my case, I have Facebook and Twitter both syncing (and linked to contacts), as well as calendar (with Exchange and 5 Google Calendars). I'm not having any problems.

I also have Exchange pushing via the HTC client, GMail pushing via its client, Weatherbug and ScoreMoblie are syncing, and 3G and GPS are set to always on.

My point is, all of these can be enabled without problems. Your problem may be coming from something else, or you may be having an issue with one of the services I mentioned here. The point is, once you know what is giving you problems, you can work to fix or (if necessary) disable the offending app.

EDIT: Add Astrid, 3Banana, the HTC weather widget, FriendStream, Google Latitude, and PageOnce to the list of things that are always on, or sync as needed.

EDIT 2: Also, I am evaluating TouchDown and running SugarSync... I think that might be it now

 

[INTREPID-NY]

You need to track down the bad app and uninstall it. Think about the day this all started. Then use AppBrain Market Sync and www.appbrain.com to sort you apps by date installed. Start removing the bad apps and testing wake time after each uninstall. It's likely one of your more recent apps. It's a bad app, not the phone. I use gmail calender without problems. Good Luck.

 

[ecb]

But are you saying just having the app enabled at all causes the phone to not sleep? Or what can I do that will allow the phone to sleep?

The existence of one of those rogue apps that kept the phone awake also resulted in putting the htc facebook sync into a state that kept my phone awake. I had no issues with the htc facebook sync until I installed the offending app.

To me, that indicates there is a bug in the htc facebook app. Also it's pretty clear that developers may need to tweak their apps to make them compatible with the version of Sense running on the Incredible. I'm basing this on the fact that I ran Good For Enterprise on both a Motorola Droid and Nexus One with no issues; both of those phones use stock Android 2.0/2.1.

If your doing a factory reset (which I did the first time I had an rogue app that caused the htc facebook app to keep my phone awake) you'll be fine (as long as you don't reinstall the rogue app)

As I mentioned previously, this does give me some concern about Sense. I have no problems with the fact that the Incredible will get Android updates later than stock Android phones but the fact that apps that run background processes may not play well with Sense is an issue. The onus may be on the app developer but, right now, there are apps that will work on stock Android phones that will not work on the Incredible and there's no promise that the developer will put in the additional work to make their app work with Sense

 

[paimon.soror]

One application I have found very helpful in diagnosing stray running applications is SystemPanel from appbrain. Give it a shot and it will show you applications that are currently running and cached on your system, as well as the cpu time they have consumed since the last restart. If you see any apps with strange cpu times (like minutes of cpu usage) then that is cause for alarm. Post some of your results and we can all try and help you pinpoint an app that has an alarming cpu time value.

 

[AJ McKay]

One application I have found very helpful in diagnosing stray running applications is SystemPanel from appbrain. Give it a shot and it will show you applications that are currently running and cached on your system, as well as the cpu time they have consumed since the last restart. If you see any apps with strange cpu times (like minutes of cpu usage) then that is cause for alarm. Post some of your results and we can all try and help you pinpoint an app that has an alarming cpu time value.

+1

I like that SystemPanel can reside in the notification bar too.

 

[tbta02]

up time and awake time the same on mine too ,reset flickr and it was corectted .if i go back to a saved scene that i saved when flickr was loaded it stsrts again .

 

[Shamrock13]

I had an issue with my sleep time, and to solve my problems, I factory reset it. My phone that was getting nearly 1:1 awake time to uptime, is now at about 5:1 or so. It's lasted me the whole day. The funny thing, however, is that I reinstalled mostly all of the same exact applications so it confuses me as to what caused the problem to begin with.

Anyway, I just suggest a factory reset, then install applications based on what you need/use most of the time.

 

[Brian_83]

Okay guys I have a sleep issue as well that I can't track down. Here is my setup and what I've tried.

I do have Facebook and Twitter setup to sync like every 4 hours I believe. I also have Exchange email setup along with Gmail of course. My phone will sleep fine until my uptime is somewhere in the 40-50 hour range. Then it stops sleeping. I've tried killing every single running app and not been able to get it sleeping again. The only thing that works is powering off the phone and then powering back on. I've tried the Calendar kill, turning off syncing and all that. Once it stops sleeping NOTHING will make it start sleeping until I power it off. Like I said I'm then good for a couple days and then the cycle starts over again until I power it off. Has anyone else see this or found a fix? I don't understand how it is an app. I generally use the same apps over and over again. Any app that I use I would open within the first day and have even tried opening them all and it will continue to sleep for about the first two days and then just stop.

I forgot to add that my partial wake usage is all 100% Android System.

 

[mntbighker]

Has anyone else see this or found a fix? I don't understand how it is an app. I generally use the same apps over and over again. Any app that I use I would open within the first day and have even tried opening them all and it will continue to sleep for about the first two days and then just stop.

I forgot to add that my partial wake usage is all 100% Android System.

I wonder if this is a temp or cache file randomly getting corrupt? Possibly one that gets overwritten on reboot? My phone does more or less the same. I think the severity of user dissatisfaction on this is greatly affected by use habits. People who routinely reboot their phone may see less issues. I reboot every morning and until my Exchange mail starting acting up today I was seeing 18 to 20 hour battery life or better. I have also seen it die unused in my pocket in 4 hours. Today the Android System Info utility showed "Mail" as the CPU hog and that was despite multiple reboots. I could watch the spinner endlessly syncing mail and you could see the sync indicator briefly flashing in the menu bar. Once the account is initially set up, at least on my phone the only server option you can edit is password so I could not try an alternate Exchange server address without deleting the account.

 

[Brian_83]

bump... anyone?

 

[INTREPID-NY]

If you can't track it down, you have no choice but to reset the phone.

I recommend the following before reset:

AppBrain Market Sync
AppBrain Market Sync - Android app on AppBrain

MyBackup
MyBackup Pro for Android

Also, if you use gmail contacts, be sure to go to www.gmail.com , contacts, and select export and save your contacts as a backup file.

General Rule for any computing device: Backup before you do anything unusual or new. For example, someone synced their Incredible with Outlook and it messed up their Outlook Contacts. Did they backup their Outlook Contacts and Calender before their first sync (takes about 32 seconds). No they didn't.

 

[Shamrock13]

General Rule for any computing device: Backup before you do anything unusual or new. For example, someone synced their Incredible with Outlook and it messed up their Outlook Contacts. Did they backup their Outlook Contacts and Calender before their first sync (takes about 32 seconds). No they didn't.

Was it you?

Anyway, I totally agree with that. For some reason, AppBrain doesn't like to keep my applications completely synced all the time, and the other day I was having a sleep problem as well where most of the time it would be reporting 1:1. So I decided to back up my applications onto the SD card as well (Thank you Astro). I reset my phone to factory, and of course, all of my applications that I had synced were gone and all that was synced were Google Maps and Facebook. I don't understand why it happened, but regardless, it is ALWAYS the best idea to back up before hand.

Which brings me to my point I came into this thread for! Haha. I suggest you reset your phone and install only what you use the most. It will more than likely help you. I have all the same programs on my phone except Twitter which I'm not going to reinstall because I don't use Twitter EVER anymore. The worst that can happen is that you have better battery life than before.

 

[TechRaven]

Just an update, after doing a factory 'reset', the battery life is back to being able to sit idle for hours and only touch 2-3% of battery life instead of sucking 100% of it away.

The first try I enabled everything and boom, 20 minutes = 20% battery life sucked away.

So back to another factory reset, working on slowly turning back services (just turned HTC Facebook Sense back on today) something definitely causes the HTC/Android system to freak out and never sleep in some configurations.

This is probably why android 'reviews' complain of awful battery performance, some configurations seem to freak the phone out and the battery becomes painful at best. With everything 'almost off', and Exchange Push off (set to 30 minutes), I got over 30 hours with replying to 10-15 e-mails, looking up something in google maps and sending a FB picture. Pretty crazy in comparison to when it gets bad, I leave the phone off the charger for an hour and it goes from 100% to dead.