Facebook App draining battery!

[CrunchyBennett]

Hello there everyone!

I have a Samsung Galaxy Note II and I have a problem with the facebook app :/

Since updating it my battery usage is absolutely shocking!
When I Click Settings > Battery facebook is running constantly at 50% / 60%

I don't know how or why it is doing this. When I hold down the 'home' or middle button, I never have any apps running as I close them when im done.

How can I stop this Facebook app running so high?

At last count my battery lasted a whole 9.5hours from 100% down to 4%....

Thank you all very much for your help in advance,

Luke

 

[Frisco]

Welcome to Android Forums, CB.

Auto sync of any social networking app (or weather or news or email, etc) is just asking for battery drain and slowdowns.

I'd advise you to go into the settings of all of your syncing apps and make changes for "on demand" or "manual," rather than at intervals. Some can be left to sync, but too many and you start to see resource drain and then it becomes easy to blame one or the other app/widget.

 

[danielfinke]

I have the same issue happening with the same device. In response to Frisco,

I'd advise you to go into the settings of all of your syncing apps and make changes for "on demand" or "manual,

I have no sort of syncing whatsoever set for the Facebook app. Additionally, installing the previous version .apk (2.2 as opposed to 2.3) remedies the issue immediately. It is most certainly the application.

 

[jsmith203344]

I just got a task killer to kill the app when I'm not using it, but the turning off sync option really saved me heaps of battery

 

[Rxpert83]

I just got a task killer to kill the app when I'm not using it, but the turning off sync option really saved me heaps of battery

Most members here would suggest you don't use one of those

I'd you want to cut down on facebook battery use, cut down on what it can do.

I turn off notificatiins, calendar sync, photo sync, location services, notoficatiins, ect.

Basically just go into settings and uncheck what you don't need

 

[LouWags]

Start Facebook.
Go to the menu and select Settings
Set these options thus:

Chat Availabilty to Off when using app
Refresh interval to Never
Messenger location services to Off
Sync Photos to Don't sync my photos
Notifications to Inactive
Sync Contacts to Don't sync

See how that works for you.

--Wag--

 

[Rxpert83]

Start Facebook.
Go to the menu and select Settings
Set these options thus:

Chat Availabilty to Off when using app
Refresh interval to Never
Messenger location services to Off
Sync Photos to Don't sync my photos
Notifications to Inactive
Sync Contacts to Don't sync

See how that works for you.

--Wag--

That's how I have mine set as well.

 

[Petrah]

Start Facebook.
Go to the menu and select Settings
Set these options thus:

Chat Availabilty to Off when using app
Refresh interval to Never
Messenger location services to Off
Sync Photos to Don't sync my photos
Notifications to Inactive
Sync Contacts to Don't sync

That's how I have mine set as well.

As do I. Facebook doesn't even register on my battery usage list.

 

[danielfinke]

Start Facebook.
Go to the menu and select Settings
Set these options thus:

Chat Availabilty to Off when using app
Refresh interval to Never
Messenger location services to Off
Sync Photos to Don't sync my photos
Notifications to Inactive
Sync Contacts to Don't sync

See how that works for you.

--Wag--

This doesn't seem to be helping either. Again, it seems the 2.2 version of the app doesn't have any issue like this, though it has "No Internet Connection" errors very frequently. Is there any way I can track down what could be causing this problem?

 

[danielfinke]

This doesn't seem to be helping either. Again, it seems the 2.2 version of the app doesn't have any issue like this, though it has "No Internet Connection" errors very frequently. Is there any way I can track down what could be causing this problem?

Also this is what my task manager says it is using for CPU (just sitting around in the background) (photo in public album)
https://www.dropbox.com/sc/jd645jwqdycpwiw/mTZirwLx4K

 

[lookimback]

Just out of curiosity I checked mine.

On the "running" tab my top 4 were as follows:

Android Forums 35% (tapatalk)
Facebook messenger 30%
Facebook 17%
Muve Music 12%

However if I go to the "all" tab its this as top 4:

Screen 73%
Opera mobile 12%
Cell standby 4%
Android Forums 3%

As for the others from the running tab top 4:

Facebook Messenger 2%
Facebook 1%
Muve Music 1%

IMHO the "running" tab is misleading. Of the running apps your Facebook app is using 50%. This is a percentage of a percentage.

In other words, Facebook is using 50% of the power being consumed by running apps but, all of your running apps do not equal 100% of the power usage.

As you can see from my "all" tab stats, when you factor the screen, which is not an app, the Facebook power usage becomes minuscule.

Hope this helps.

I will be adjusting my screen brightness now thanks to this thread.

 

[chanchan05]

Facebook isn't actually eating 50% of your battery, what you saw under settings>battery was that of the apps you've used in the past, facebook used up 50% of the battery used up.

For example, I drain my battery to about 80% by checking Facebook, Twitter, texting and taking a picture. If I check battery usage and it says Facebook 50%, that means Facebook used 50% of the 20% used charge, which is an actual value of 10% of the charge. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?

 

[lookimback]

That's pretty much what I said but less words.

 

[danielfinke]

Facebook isn't actually eating 50% of your battery, what you saw under settings>battery was that of the apps you've used in the past, facebook used up 50% of the battery used up.

For example, I drain my battery to about 80% by checking Facebook, Twitter, texting and taking a picture. If I check battery usage and it says Facebook 50%, that means Facebook used 50% of the 20% used charge, which is an actual value of 10% of the charge. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?

This makes sense, and I was aware of this. But let's say I went on Facebook for 10 minutes, saw that screen was way higher than Facebook in battery use, idled/locked my device for 10 hours, and then checked this, the battery is substantially down with Facebook as a culprit of roughly 60% (since screen is off now). Comparing this to my recent day of use on Facebook 2.2, the percentage from Facebook is way too high (got 6% this time). Also, I'm at 71% battery left instead of 15. This simply has to be because of additional consumption (see my screenshot of background process CPU usage). What I'm wondering, is whether there is another way to reduce this without being forced on version 2.2.

 

[chanchan05]

This makes sense, and I was aware of this. But let's say I went on Facebook for 10 minutes, saw that screen was way higher than Facebook in battery use, idled/locked my device for 10 hours, and then checked this, the battery is substantially down with Facebook as a culprit of roughly 60% (since screen is off now). Comparing this to my recent day of use on Facebook 2.2, the percentage from Facebook is way too high (got 6% this time). Also, I'm at 71% battery left instead of 15. This simply has to be because of additional consumption (see my screenshot of background process CPU usage). What I'm wondering, is whether there is another way to reduce this without being forced on version 2.2.

I'm on 2.3 and Facebook doesn't even come up in my battery usage stats. How exactly do you exit Facebook? Pressing back or home key? If I try to look at my Task Manager while Facebook is running, or I send it to background using the home key, I get a similar reading with Facebook 2.3 eating 20-25% CPU cycles. However if from the Facebook app I press the "back" key to exit, and I check the task manager, Facebook disappears from it. Basically, it appears you are setting to Facebook to run in the background instead of exiting the app.

 

[tcat007]

Just uninstall it and go to www. facebook .com and use it through a browser. I installed the FB app about a year ago and uninstalled it after 30 minutes seeing no real advantages over the normal browser experience. I had it added to Flipboard for a day or two, but also saw no need and figured it was just using juice that I didn't need to be using.

 

[LouWags]

This doesn't seem to be helping either. Again, it seems the 2.2 version of the app doesn't have any issue like this, though it has "No Internet Connection" errors very frequently. Is there any way I can track down what could be causing this problem?

It could be that it's not necessarily FB that is causing your problem but the lack of connection. When your phone can find a connection, it keeps trying and trying and as it does, it's chewing on your battery in the process.

As others have said, 50% may not be half of your total battery usages, however, you still may be able to reduce the usage by making sure you have a good connection before you attempt to use FB.

--Wag--

 

[miediev]

If you're on Android 3.1 or up and have root you can try Greenify: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oasisfeng.greenify It forces apps to hibernate when the screen turns off so they stop using resources. Facebook is one of the biggest offenders there.

 

[LaTuFu]

Facebook and Tweetcaster were absolutely pegging my CPU usage for a while, even when I had them dialed back.

I now interface with them through my browser, and the issues are completely gone. Battery life is much more reasonable as a result.

 

[Metroid Prime]

Never use task killers as those just drain more battery than they "Save" and it's also not good for the device. Since you said the issue happened after updating it you could go and uninstall the latest update.

 

[oaklane]

Great LouWags, I did that now time to see what it does. Thanks!