Help 2.3.6 Battery life sucks

[dapheel]

I called Samsung Support and they helped me to change the wifi sleep policy from "never" to "when screen turns off". I will let you know if this results in a resolution to battery drain issue. It sounds like it will fix it.

Action Taken:
1. Settings
2. Wireless and Network
3. Wifi Settings
4. Click Menu Button (next to Home Button) and Select Advanced
5. Select Wi-Fi sleep policy
6. Change it from "Never" to either "Never when plugged in" or "When Screen turns off".

Update - I went to bed last night before midnight with this setting with battery at 70% and this morning at 8am the battery was at 64%. Since it only used 6% over 8 hours, this worked for me. I have a GS2.

I agree with the people stating that it will use up more of your data package with your carrier. I'm going to review my data usage for the last 2 months to see how much hspa+ data it was using during the night before update to 2.3.6, after update to 2.3.6, and last night.

 

[Tarnlight]

Revision to my previous post about the settings change not working. It does work.
In a post last night, I said I had tried the settings change that Dapheel had posted about and that it didn't work.
After that post, I decided to reboot the phone to see if the setting change would be activated after a reboot. It was. I let the phone sit all night and there was no longer battery drain. When I activate the phone from a dormant state, I can see the wifi activating in the top of the screen. So, at least on my S2, I would say it has fixed the problem. It does seem to take a few minutes, or so, for the wifi to disengage when the screen is turned off, however, but not a real big deal.

 

[mratlndmrk]

View attachment 26762

Yes, Samsung... it IS possible to get battery life close to this, if you fix your damn update!

Agreed. This is with wifi off unless I needed it.

 

[jdCaptivate]

View attachment 26762

Agreed. This is with wifi off unless I needed it.

I actually went over 2d's on that charge. I should have cap'd it... but, eh. I saw it.

 

[jdCaptivate]

Keep up the Twitters.

 

[SatelliteGuy]

Mine is totally unacceptable, I just havent had time to reflash it. I can put a freshly charged battery in at 11pm and wake up at 5am, phone dead as a doorknob. This is rediculous! I have 8 spare batteries and 4 chargers, and I still have to be careful not to screw up and have too many dead at one time. I had this exact setup with my EVO, and christ, I could run a week in the wilderness on 9 batteries! (and have, lol) 5 hours?? Come on!

 

[mratlndmrk]

I actually went over 2d's on that charge. I should have cap'd it... but, eh. I saw it.

Left wifi on all day yesterday and was down to 19% after 13 hours.

 

[orlando guy]

But I want to chime in here. I downloaded the update last night and noticed nothing new. I didn't use the phone after the update. Woke up this morning and the phone was dead. I wanted to post screen cap of the battery usage graph - it's almost a perfect V. It's discharging almost as fast as it's charging. Blows.

 

[SatelliteGuy]

OK! I have an update that may be useful....
1st, background...
Galaxy S2 was running stock but rooted for a couple weeks, then changed to UnNamed about the same time I got my spare batteries and chargers in from China. Starting then, I was getting lousy battery life.

Two days ago, I decided to try out CM7. (I am so unhappy my camera doesn't work now tho) Battery life improved a noticable amount, but was still not good. I found a post, maybe earlier in this one, that talked about resetting your battery meters and being careful about reflashing because your new ROM starts out thinking that the battery is at 100% when it first fires up. I reset my battery meter and between that, and flashing to CM7, I went from putting in a fresh battery at 10pm and awaking at 5am to a dead phone, to getting about 30+ hours out of it.

So I have deduced that:
1. Flash matters. I noticed a huge difference on my EVO a whle back as well. As much as a 100% to 200% improvement.
2. That battery stats thing matters. Play around with it. Figure out how it works cuz appearently it makes a HUGE difference.

 

[Ni Dieu Ni Maitre]

Prior to today, I hadn't had any problems with 2.3.6 battery life. Unfortunately, that no longer seems to be the case. Today I managed only 11 hours and some odd minutes before hitting 8%

I was at work for most of the day where I was connected to wi-fi, but rarely using my phone for anything but a text or two here and there. It was just like any other day at work. If anything, I probably used my phone less than normal, as it was somewhat of a busy day.

So my day consisted of a web page here and there, some moderate texting, and a few minutes of Doodle Jump. At about 10 hours in, I took a screenshot of my battery-usage-graph-thing which I will share. Wi-fi was on all day as usual, but today it took quite a toll on my battery. My battery life had seemed lessened, but generally comparable to 2.3.4 (or whatever the previous version was, I forget). Today it's not even comparable. The only time I killed my battery so quickly was with heavy gaming and browsing throughout the day.

I don't know much of anything about kernels/roms/modems, but I guess I'll start looking into them =\

I apologize for the gigantic picture, but I don't know how the hell to post it smaller. I tried adding it as an attachment, but it was too big or something.

http://i40.tinypic.com/dgjhx5.png

 

[jdCaptivate]

I'm about ready to go ahead and flash. The devs seem to have a pretty good grasp on the GSII, at this point.

 

[jackal2001]

Hello new user here.
I joined up because I picked up a Samsung Galaxy SII ATT about a month ago. It is not rooted, and running on 2.3.6. Battery life was horrible. I would go to bed at 50% or so and wake up to a dead phone.

Anyway I've installed juicedefender beta (not sure why I can't install a paid for version but it states not available for my phone), Battery Time just to see the battery in a percentage, and now ATT Smart WiFi.

When looking at my battery usage before installing the ATT Smart WiFi the OS was up at 90%+. Now I just installed the ATT Smart Wifi and I'm not at a wifi spot, so wifi is off. Rebooted phone and OS is 4% and System is at 10%.

I believe JuiceDefender (free beta) is supposed to turn off the wireless when the screen is not active, but I'm not 100% sure.

I know that everyone is waiting for a OS update to fix the issue but for now I'm trying to find a solution without rooting (because 2.3.6 i've read leads to wireless problems when rooted).

I think maybe Juicedefender would be a good solution for me just because it disables the wifi and connects every so often but for some reason I don't know why i can't purchase it. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[wolfyboy359]

what's wrong with att smart wifi? doesn't that work too?

 

[josun]

I think maybe Juicedefender would be a good solution for me just because it disables the wifi and connects every so often but for some reason I don't know why i can't purchase it. Anyone have any ideas?

AT&T's asked Google to block the Pro/Ultimate version. Some say purchasing works after turning on the airplane mode with wifi on and clearing the market data and cache but that didn't work for me so YMMV. You can also try it through the Amazon app store but mine kept on failing the installation.

 

[jackal2001]

AT&T's asked Google to block the Pro/Ultimate version. Some say purchasing works after turning on the airplane mode with wifi on and clearing the market data and cache but that didn't work for me so YMMV. You can also try it through the Amazon app store but mine kept on failing the installation.

I just read on the support forums that they are going to try and get it back on the marketplace for download by the end of this month. I also read that a guy from ATT customer support stated ATT was getting hammered with support calls from peoples networks not working correctly after installing it because they didn't know how to configure the app properly. That is why ATT pulled it.

 

[jdCaptivate]

I know that everyone is waiting for a OS update to fix the issue but for now I'm trying to find a solution without rooting (because 2.3.6 i've read leads to wireless problems when rooted).

Rooting hasn't anything to do with it. The same issue, is showing up, in the exact same way with both rooted and non-rooted phones. Its already been ruled out, by troubleshooting variables.

 

[jackal2001]

what's wrong with att smart wifi? doesn't that work too?

As long as I'm home, the network connection for wifi will still be enabled. So from 5pm to 7am the network connection will be active and I would like it disabled when not in use.

The ATT app is great when you are not in your specific wifi area.

 

[jackal2001]

Rooting hasn't anything to do with it. The same issue, is showing up, in the exact same way with both rooted and non-rooted phones. Its already been ruled out, by troubleshooting variables.

OK thanks. I don't know much about anything on rooting phones. I've been looking at the different ways to doing it. Not that much info on the new OS version yet and from the forums it looks like some have issues rooting with certain programs.
It is a bit confusing for me especially since they tell you that you need the correct version of this and that, etc.

 

[jackal2001]

Well with juicedefender and att wifi app, my phone lasted a whopping 14 hours or so. OS was pegged at over 90% and all it was doing was sitting on my desk last night after I got home from work. I didn't even touch it.

I've uninstalled juicedefender and att wifi app and disabled wifi, rebooted and will see how long it lasts now.

Anyone think if IceCreamSandwitch will fix this issue???
Also is this a Samsung Problem, ATT Problem or Google Problem? I'm not sure who to complain to about it.

 

[wolfyboy359]

I think juice defender may be a fix, but att smart wifi isn't. For me, it just seems to turn wifi on when I disconnect. That seems to be all the app does. I charged my phone, and then went to sleep for a long time, when I woke up it said your battery is dead. I hadn't used the phone at all! I didn't know what the deal was until I tried using wifi all the time. I hadn't been using it much, but didn't see any difference in battery use even after 2.3.6. Now I am nearing my data limit. ARGGGGH!! I hope somebody figures this out! And soon!!

 

[alexeyV]

Hi all,
Posting here for the first time. Everything was great on 2.3.4, could squeeze two days out of it with moderate/little use. After the OTA upgrade to 2.3.6 yesterday (Jan. 16), battery life is horrible, and I do see that the Android OS is gobbling up most of it, like others have posted. I have a couple of questions/observations:

1) When wifi is ON: I noticed that when I touch the screen with the back of my palm close to my thumb (to get most sensitivity to temperature), it is somewhat warm in the upper middle, close to the AT&T logo. Is this where the WiFi card is located? Is this an indication that something is wrong with it if it's heating up so much? Can someone point it out to the guys at AT&T and/or Samsung? You can feel the screen in different spots, and there is a noticeable increase in temp. in the upper part. (If you have your phone in your pocket, take it out to cool down a bit for the best difference. Also if your wifi was off, turn it on and give it a few minutes to warm up that spot) When I turn wifi off, the screen is uniformly cool to the touch. This is a poor-man's experimental proof that 2.3.6 messes up wifi in galaxy s2. It is overheating for some reason.

2) I also noticed that now there is a service called NFC that I occasionally see running. I don't think I saw it in 2.3.4. This probably activates the near-field communications card which I think is present in s2 but was not active until this update (?). Can it be interfering with wifi and causing extra battery drain? (doubt about this one, but still maybe someone knows)

3) Would like to resolve battery drain problem ASAP. Anyone knows how to roll back to 2.3.4? I want my 2.3.4 back!

 

[alexeyV]

Search online for unroot galaxy s2 and follow the directions, this is on the galaxys2root site. I rolled back mine to 2.3.4 without any issues. Everything seems to work including wifi, and battery life is back to normal. 2.3.6 sucks!
Forgot to mention that I have a stock phone, never rooted.
Another point: I didn't need to go to step 8 in the directions to return the phone to factory defaults. I stopped at step 7, so all of my apps and settings were preserved!

 

[rmreid]

Ok I'm tired of waiting, so I called Samsung today and I am sending my GS2 back to them for analysis of the WiFi 2.3.6 bug issue.
I should have it back in 7 business days, I'll let everyone know the results.

 

[jackal2001]

Ok I'm tired of waiting, so I called Samsung today and I am sending my GS2 back to them for analysis of the WiFi 2.3.6 bug issue.
I should have it back in 7 business days, I'll let everyone know the results.

They wanted me to do the same thing and I told them no way. Let us know how it goes. I don't have another cell to use so I need my phone.

I really want to root my phone but may hold off until ICS comes out to see if it fixes some of these issues. Plus there are a lot of things I don't understand yet with kernels, roms, etc.

 

[wolfyboy359]

I don't think you have to root your phone to go back to 2.3.4.... You can just flash it back. There's a way how here:
Re: Samsung Galaxy S2 SGH-i777 2.3.6 OTA update no... - Page 7 - AT&T Community Support
I got it from the other thread here about this update. A thread that should be merged with this one maybe... But I am going to think a few days about it, but I might do this flash.

update if anyone cares: Juice Defender is working pretty well. I am getting better battery life now than even with 2.3.4. Not promoting this app, but just saying.