• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help Battery Issues

brandonhutch

Well-Known Member
Mar 29, 2010
214
87
Phoenix, AZ
Battery is acting finicky. Doesn't hold a charge very well unless left on the charger for an extended period of time. The turbo charging cord is all I've ever used and I've found it to take about 45m-1h to take a full charge for nearly the past two years. Lately it will show as 100% charged after that time, but then drain very quickly. I just timed it at about 18% lost over a 10 minute span with all the apps cleared out. If I put it on the charger and leave it overnight, it will most likely last me most of the day or run out towards the end, like tonight, where I have to put it back on and it will act like this. I've noticed this over the last couple of weeks. Started after I did a system update on 9/6 to system version 25.216.2.kinzie_verizon.verizon.en.US Android 7.0 Nougat.

Charger issue? Battery issue? Unstable?

I haven't even paid it off yet. Heh. I don't necessarily want to be getting into another one just yet.
 
Motorola phone batteries never last very long. I have a Motorola Maxx, and just a little over a year of use I noticed the battery is getting worse, similar issues you are having.

There could be an issue with the battery where the phone thinks its at a higher percentage, but really its not. That could explain why it looses 18% in 10 minutes.

So tips for saving battery life. Not sure if Motorolas have this feature or not, but under battery usage in settings you can see which apps use the most. You can restrict background access to the ones that use the most if you want, but messaging and similar apps wont work properly if you restrict them. Don't let your battery go lower than ~60%. This will help "train" it and get it back as close as it can to normal. Don't let it charge over night. Most newer phones won't let the phone charge after the battery is full, but it is good practice to get it fully charged before you go to bed. Hope those helped, although you have probably looked this up already and seen these lol.

You can also try using a charger with higher amperage, or the charger that came with the phone would be even better, if you still have it. I recommend using an adapter with at least 2.0A. That should help your charging times.
 
Upvote 0
I've never had issues with any of my Motorola batteries and I've had them since the original Droid... They have always done well for the first couple of years and then like all other lithium batteries... after that start having a shorter life between charges...
I kind of did put all the blame on Motorola. Its really more how you treat the battery. But the only Motorolas I have used the batteries only stayed in "normal" condition for at least a year, which I guess isn't too bad.
 
Upvote 0
For the Droid Turbo 2 it comes with a turbo charger that is the higher output and faster. I always charged it with a TYLT wires charger and leave it on the dock most of the time I am in the office.

For best battery performance the FIRST thing to do is a Wipe Cache Partition. It can become contaminated over time and cause all manner of problems including eating battery.

Android 7.1.1 on other devices no longer has a separated cache partition but you can clear the areas using the internal/power on method.

Performance on my Droid Turbo 2 was always superb. (I do a wipe cache partition every Saturday.)

All Motorola phones stop charging at 100% and then start discharging. When they get low enough (95%?) they start charging again. That is why the remaining charge numbers are always a little misleading immediately after removing it from the charger.

... Thom
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
The phone is just over 18 months. I've always subscribed to the 2yrs/done battery theory, but this seems early even for that. Wiped.

So, I did some tests and it seems like it usually goes in one of two ways. Scenario 1, It charges fully overnight. I take it off the charger when I leave the house for the day and put it back just before I go to bed. Usage is moderate. See screen shots attached. I'd say this is a slightly light day - a lot of times it's more like 40-50% - but basically in line with my experience since I've owned the phone and most descriptive of my day for about 4-5 days of the week.

Scenario 2, Charges fully overnight, I take it off the charger when I get up and use it enough to where it's to about 15-20% by half my day. So I put it back on in the middle of the day and it charges full in about 1 hour, give or take. ( This is how long I've always known it to take to charge full with the included turbo charger. ) But when I pull it off after it charges full, THAT'S when it starts acting funny. That's when it will start depleting super quick, like the 18% in 10 minutes that I have been seeing.

So, maybe it actually takes longer than 1 hr to get a full charge even though the battery is reading 100%? That would explain why it's acts normal after receiving a full charge after being on overnight and why it's funky when it's only an hour ... ? Is that a thing?

I will try and recreate scenario 2 and post some screen shots.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_20170928-002944.png
    Screenshot_20170928-002944.png
    401.6 KB · Views: 1,072
  • Screenshot_20170928-002948.png
    Screenshot_20170928-002948.png
    402.9 KB · Views: 585
Upvote 0
And no good story comes without a plot twist ...

Today is mystery Scenario 3 ... I let charge overnight, for approximately 5 hours to 100%. Took it off the charger at 10:00 a.m., browsed Facebook for a maybe 10 minutes maximum, used Google Maps Navigation to take me 16 miles ( approximately 20 minutes, and the screen was turned off the entire time ), and came back home. My entire day so far has been approximately 2.5 hours with the screen mostly off and not using any apps other than what I've stated above. Screenshots attached.

There's no way this is 'normal'. Does anyone have an explanation for this extreme battery discharge?

On a side note: 2.5 hours ago I used the recent apps list after Facebook and cleared out all the apps that were running. When I went back in just now and looked, there were several apps running in that list that I hadn't gone in and started. Very arbitrary apps as well. Unfortunately I don't remember what they were but I know for fact that I hadn't used them.

This is what I've been talking about except today it's acting up after an overnight charge to 100% ... usually it takes draining the battery to nearly depleted and "re-charging" the phone in order for the battery to drain this quickly.

I've got it charging right now and I've cleared out all the apps. Once it gets to 100% ( however long that takes, although I assume it will be ~1 hour ) I will take it off the charger and post screenshots when the battery starts draining rapidly.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_20170928-121552.png
    Screenshot_20170928-121552.png
    387.6 KB · Views: 479
  • Screenshot_20170928-121558.png
    Screenshot_20170928-121558.png
    406.5 KB · Views: 442
Last edited:
Upvote 0
Update:

It's been on the charger for about 25-30 minutes and it's been holding steady at "95%" charge for the past 10-15 minutes ... which can't possibly be right ( meaning it took only ~10-15 minutes for it to charge from 12% to 95% ).

Going to leave it on for another 1.5 hours until 2:45 when I will need to take it off for the entire day and see what happens. I'm guessing that it won't make it through the day until I get back home at 10:30 or so.
 
Upvote 0
Update 2:

Just checked in on it again, 45 minutes later. Still holding at 95% and there are, again, a bunch of rogue apps in the recents list, some that I haven't used in months ... Shazam and Paypal to list just a couple. There's also Play Store and a few others. Keep in mind that I cleared out all the apps when I put it on the charger and haven't used the phone since.

Anyone?
 
Upvote 0
When you first posted ( in your first post ) that you'd cleared out your apps.... I thought you meant, like when most people say that... you'd removed or didn't reload the apps onto your phone after the update. It seems now, based on my assumption of the way you used the word again... you meant that you cleared the recent apps from memory....

On Android phones, many apps ( most notably system apps such as Play Store which must look for updates for your installed apps ), email clients ( like Gmail and others ), the Phone app itself and many others .... so run in the background even after you've "cleared" them from the recent app list. This is normal and to be expected. In addition any widgets you have on your desktop home screens are also working in the background all of the time. That is actually just a short list of these types of apps... it's much too long to actually list here.

What you can do... uninstall apps you don't use. Disable any of the Verizon apps you don't want or need. Just be careful which what you disable, you don't want to disable something that may be needed by the system to work properly. Enable the battery optimization on those apps you don't think you need running in the background ( remember they can't update their info or notify you if you do this unless you open them ).

What I like to do after a major update or yearly ( which ever comes first ) is a major house cleaning. First I backup any data, photo's, contacts etc that are important to me... Then I do a Factory Reset and clear the cache just after that. I then disable the factory apps I don't want or need. Finally I restore/reinstall just the apps I use and then finally the data I backed up earlier. It usually takes me about an evening to get it all done... but everything works smooth again and I've cleaned "house" in the process. If you do this.. it will take your phone about of week of use before the battery stats to actually reflect your useage and estimate how charged it is again.
 
Upvote 0
What I like to do after a major update or yearly ( which ever comes first )

I get all of that. And I'm very cautious of how I use backup/wipe partition. But I'm not an "app whore". That is, I'm not constantly downloading/uninstalling apps left and right just to see what they're like. The apps I have installed are apps that I've always had installed when my battery was working properly. And I also understand that apps gets updated and don't always play nice but it's been a month ... if this were an issue with a particular app, wouldn't it have been corrected and updated by now? Compared to a lot of people in these forums, I'm a very, VERY vanilla user of my phone. I have a few apps that I've always used and have always had on my phone(s). This battery issue is something that has just bubbled up within the last month, and to be honest, I really feel like it has to do with the recent system update. If this happened every charge, then it wouldn't be that big of a deal and I'd chalk it up to a misfiring app or age ( even though it's only been 18 months ... ). But it happens intermittently without any rhyme or reason.

I just now had an issue where the battery was empty, I put it back on with the turbo charger for about an hour and a half - which I think everyone would agree is a sufficient amount of time to charge the battery a good amount, if not full, especially with the way this particular phone "turbo charges". It stated 100% full. It lasted maybe 20 minutes while playing a game and shut off in the middle of it - without any type of 'low battery' warning that I usually get when the battery gets below 15% - which, to me, signifies that the phone thought it had more of a charge than it actually did(??). It seems that there's a disconnect between what the actual battery charge is and what the phone is telling me it is - that's my whole thing.

I had problems with the first Turbo 2 that I got when they first dropped ( got it within the first week ). I ended up swapping that one out for my current one, which has worked pretty well for the first year and a half or so right up until the last month. I used Samsung phones before that but switched to Motorola when the Moto X came out to see if their radios were any better - and they were - which is why I followed that up with the Turbo 2. But I'm ready to head back to Samsung after all of this bs.

I understand that it might mean taking some time to uninstall/reinstall apps just to figure this out ... but why should it come to me spending the better part of my night, ANY night, making the phone work properly. It either should or shouldn't work, especially since it's not rooted and all of the apps that on it are available publicly. To say that it's frustrating is an understatement.
 
Upvote 0
Do as you wish... but if you want to get down to it... actually find out if it's a hardware or a software issue.... you have to do something other than just talk about it. Diagnostics 101... divide the possible causes of the problem in half... what I suggested with a factory reset would do just that... if the problem remains after that... then you know it's hardware, if it goes away... its software.
 
Upvote 0
18 months is not unusual to start seeing battery degradation, and I think especially that a lot of "turbo" charging, which can heat the battery, probably degrades it more than if you did slower, more standard charging. Also, Motorola under Lenovo is now really a completely different company from the Motorola owned by Google was at the time the Moto X came out.

Sorry, but everything that you are describing sounds like a battery that has lost enough of its capacity to be noticeably different.

However, one more thing to try is to clear the cache partition, which doesn't delete any apps or data but deletes a bunch of temporary files. See https://mobilesupport.lenovo.com/us/en/solution/MS108278 for instructions.
 
  • Like
Reactions: brandonhutch
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones