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Help Battery (Erroneously?) "Runs Down" when Not In Safe Mode

mcknigs

Member
Nov 18, 2009
86
3
tl;dr - I have two Galaxies that think they're draining very quickly but may not be.

This is happening with both my own Galaxy S7 and my wife's S6. It seems to lose power very quickly and shut down when it hit's 0% battery. When plugged into a charger it reports a reasonable time to recharge (~2 hours) but then charges much faster, as though it actually had as much battery left as it should, but the reported percentage was wrong. Sometimes, when leaving it on a charger overnight, it apparently shuts off the charging when it hits 100%, then drains down to zero by the time I wake up. Then I plug it in and it charges quickly.

I talked to a cellphone repair guy who said it may be a software issue and that a factory reset may fix it. The fact that I've run both phones in Safe Mode for a few days and they behave fairly normally makes me think it's a software, not hardware, issue.

I searched all over for info on this but all I find is how to reduce drain, not how to fix software-related misreporting/misunderstanding of remaining battery power. Is this common? Can anyone shed any light? I'm about to bite the bullet and do a factory reset.

TIA
 
If they work normally in safe mode that implies that it's one of the apps you have installed that is the problem. So look in the phone's power settings and see whether you can spot a particular app that's responsible for heavy drain. If you can't, find a better battery monitor in the Play Store (something like GSam, which tracks background usage as well as foreground, might be better than Accubattery which is good on foreground usage but weak on screen-off usage). If you can identify a culprit and remove that it will be less hassle than a reset (especially if you then restored a misbehaving app after the reset).
 
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If they work normally in safe mode that implies that it's one of the apps you have installed that is the problem. So look in the phone's power settings and see whether you can spot a particular app that's responsible for heavy drain. If you can't, find a better battery monitor in the Play Store (something like GSam, which tracks background usage as well as foreground, might be better than Accubattery which is good on foreground usage but weak on screen-off usage). If you can identify a culprit and remove that it will be less hassle than a reset (especially if you then restored a misbehaving app after the reset).

Thanks for the response. I've tried looking at app usage and not identified anything that would explain what's happening. You're suggesting that may be the fault of the app monitor? I'll check that out. Would a problem with the native app/battery monitor explain the discrepancy between the reported battery level and what may be a different, actual battery level? And could this cause either (a) the phone to be shutting down when there's actually battery left or (b) the phone to stop charging when it thinks it's hit 100% when in reality it's much lower?

Edit: Installed GSam. It tells me how much battery is being used by "Combined APP CPU" but dosn't break it down. Apparently if Want more details I have to install ADB on my computer and set up a terminal connection via USB to the phone. That looks like more than I want to take on at the moment.

Thanks again.
 
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Try enabling your Developer Options menu and use the Running Services option. It doesn't require installing any third-party app and is more extensive than just looking in your Settings >> Battery menu.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/android-apps-background-kill/
Of course just identifying what app/service is draining your battery is the first step. Since this same problem is happening on two different phones that would indicate either there's an app installed on both that's the source of the problem, or a similar configuration option that's not occurring while in Safe Mode.
 
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