Help Battery drain after official JB update, any advice?

[aldo82]

Hi folks,

I updated to the official Jelly Bean build on Three in the Uk yesterday. When I first got my phone on ICS I played around checking wakelocks etc and managed to get everything set up so battery drain in standby was around 0.5 % per hour so 3 or 4% drop over night (if not plugged in of course). Last night with JB though my phone droppped roughly 3 times that much I'm currently at 70% wiht 11 hours standby and just 34 min screen time. Its not completely tragic but much worse than on ICS so I'm guessing theres a problem

In Battery Stats on the phone, Android OS has 'Stay awake' as 1h 11m which seems way too high and the history details page (with the graph) shows lots of narrow blue lines in the awake section so my phone kept waking up all night long - certainly much worse than before with no new apps, just the updated OS.

So has anyone any tips as to how to fix it? I didn't Factory Reset after so I'm thinking I could try this, but if I do should I backup in Kies first then re-install the backup? Or should I just use the google back up, or should I do a 'clean' reset, i.e. reset it and start from new again? That would be a pain but in my iphone days I always used to set up as new for a new version of the OS so I could handle it!

Anything else I could try?

 

[John P]

Have you tried installing Better Battery Stats & GSam battery monitor as well? I find Better Battery Stats is better to show the awake/sleep time, whereas GSam gives more details about individual apps and which app is using battery than BBS does.

As a comparison for you, I also updated to JB yesterday on 3, and was interested to know the difference in standby battery drain. I had a drop of 0.61% per hour overnight which is on par with, and the exact same settings as I had in ICS.
So in theory, yes, as you say it looks like there is an app or setting causing yours to drain slightly more. Try GSam if you haven't already

 

[aldo82]

thanks for the reply. I have just put both of those apps on - they were the ones I used to optimise battery life originally when I got my phone. I didn't really want to go through all that again but suppose its better than a factory reset! Interesting to know yours is operating just the same, shows something is up with mine.

Btw do you have google now switched on? I noticed a location reporting setting was turned on (can't remember what its called and can't check my phone at the mo as leaving it for BBS to get some data). Wonder if it was broadcast my location all night so switched this off to see if it was the culprit

 

[John P]

No I don't have Google now switched on. Is yours switched on? That sounds like a good shout to be causing the extra drain, considering you haven't changed or added anything else.
I would be very interested to know your findings

 

[aldo82]

yeah I've switched google now on as I thought I'd try it out first to see if its useful. I have now turned off reporting location which 'I think' is used for synching google now across devices but I only have one android device so not important to me.

Need to check BBS and GSam after leaving over night as i need to use my phone too much during the day to get good stats!

From what I've seen today, I did have a large wakelock from MediaScannerService after a reboot but I think this is normal (to a degree) as the phone scanned media when switched on. This has reduced now. Android System is running at 20% which is much higher than it used to be on ICS. I'm not noticing anything else major so I'll have to check it overnight. Perhaps location reporting for google now was the problem which I've now unticked

 

[John P]

Hopefully that's it then, fingers crossed.
Like you I find its impossible to test during the day as I need to use the phone, whenever I test, I always test overnight to get a longer standby time and a more conclusive result.
Please keep me informed how it goes

 

[SUroot]

MediaScannerService wakelock is common after JB update on the S3. Its JellyBean scanning your SD card (removable generally) for all your existing media. For some (like me) it never went away.

The best advice I found for this (and can confirm it works 100%) is to backup your sd card to PC, format it and put your data back on Sd.

 

[tnedator]

MediaScannerService wakelock is common after JB update on the S3. Its JellyBean scanning your SD card (removable generally) for all your existing media. For some (like me) it never went away.

The best advice I found for this (and can confirm it works 100%) is to backup your sd card to PC, format it and put your data back on Sd.

Format it on the PC, or do you format it via the phone?

 

[SUroot]

I did it via the phone. It doesn't matter really. As long as its formatted fresh without "Old" media left on it afterwards

 

[nav2012]

Wow you guys are too deep into tweaking the phone so much to get more juice out of the battery. unless you are out on the road all day and not at a desk job as mine, I just charge my phone overnight, then again while driving and that keeps it running during the day. I had the Power Saving feature ON for last few days and was able to extend the life to 1.5 day instead of 1 day. But then removed it yesterday as what is the point clocking the CPU to half its speed after forking out so much for this phone.

 

[SUroot]

Not really. This thread is about a substantial difference in battery usage after an upgrade.

The culprit when I upgraded ended up forever running, causing upto 40% of the entire battery to be used. This is not being "in to deep". This is something obviously wrong

 

[Mar]

MediaScannerService wakelock is common after JB update on the S3. Its JellyBean scanning your SD card (removable generally) for all your existing media. For some (like me) it never went away.

The best advice I found for this (and can confirm it works 100%) is to backup your sd card to PC, format it and put your data back on Sd.

Wait a minute,. This MediaScannerService , does it include Mediaserver? I updated the other day and my battery life i think is a bit worse. I dont have MediaScannerService showing up but i do have the other one. If I copy all my SD files, format the SD card on the phone and copy the files back on it should be ok?

 

[SUroot]

Mediaserver is typically from loading music (or video) to be played... so whenever I play music, media server appears. This is not new for me..

I'd definitely monitor that though

 

[Mar]

Mediaserver is typically from loading music (or video) to be played... so whenever I play music, media server appears. This is not new for me..

I'd definitely monitor that though

Yes that's true. I do play a bit of music so that's not the same as the MediaScannerService then?
I'll keep an eye out for it. I suspect its all the google now usage perhaps

 

[SUroot]

Nah. MSS is what keeps your gallery, video and music library up to date.

 

[SUroot]

Yeah Google now is a massive hog

 

[aldo82]

so, last night I ran a test. Fully charged then left it for 10 hours. After this it'd lost 8% which is much less than the night before so things must be settling down although still worse than on ICS when I'd probably loose 4 or 5% in that time.

Checking BBS, the phone was awake for 43 mins in that time. The main wakelock was multipdp at 17 mins, then secril_fd-interface. I believe there is nothing that can be done for these and the multipdp relates to cell data transfer so either its not shutting off correctly or I had lots of data communication over night - now this could be because of Google Now I wonder??

I know BBS uses battery so perhaps drain would be slightly less with it so I should probably just accept it although still slightly frustrated battery life seems to be worse than with ICS.

One thing I've noticed is that wifi doesn't seem to shut off correctly when set to only stay connected when plugged in. The first night with JB I forgot to switch wifi off and I think this might've contributed to the drain as it didn't shut off draining battery in a room which is along way from my router so only has a very weak signal. Maybe that was the problem, not sure

May also see how I go with Google now switched off. I like the idea of it but its not as yet really helping me as I don't drive to work and already have a weather widget so thats two of its main features gone!

 

[aldo82]

an update after running a few more tests...

Switched google now off and left on standby. 9h 41m later and battery down just 4%. This is similar to, if not a little better than I used to get on ICS. Total awake in that time of 18m, down from 43m with google now on.

I then switched google now back on but barely touched my phone all day and it was down to 50% when I got home - which considering it remained in my pocket all day as I was busy is disapointing.

Tried switching off the notification alerts for google now to see if that helps. I can imagine that in order to put directions and weather etc in the notification area then it has to continually communicate to get the info. There are no ways to set google now refersh interval or give it quiet times so I wondered whether switching off notifications would allow it to work only when I open it and not all the time in the background. In 7h 12m lost 8% with 56m 42 of awake time. Hmmm, perhaps this isn't the solution!

Seems to me if you are happy to charge regularly and don't care about standby time then leave google now running all the time. If you want to eek out battery life then switch it off. Its a shame as its much less battery efficient than I expected. Wish there was a way to have it work when and only I open the google now app and not all the time in the background. Maybe there is and I've missed the setting? Will keep investigating!

 

[jkmasi]

"Media" with the little down arrow is burning up my battery since Jelly Bean. I saw the tip to reformat my external sd card. I did that, and at first I thought it solved the problem. Yesterday, after the reformat, battery life was perfect, and Media was no longer at the top of apps using the battery (using GSAM Battery to check). Today, when I got to work, I noticed that the phone was getting hot, and I watched the battery dropping 1% every couple of minutes. Opened GSAM, and there was Media at the top of the list AGAIN. So, I transferred my music and photos to internal storage, and took out the micro sd card, figuring that the card must be beyond repair since I have been taking it out a lot, and using it it a Razr Maxx HD (switching multiple times/week).

Even with the card out, I was surprised to see that Media was still topping my list. What's going on? Before anyone suggests it -- I did a factory reset after the update.

Anyone else having this problem?

 

[phil75231]

Wow you guys are too deep into tweaking the phone so much to get more juice out of the battery. unless you are out on the road all day and not at a desk job as mine, I just charge my phone overnight, then again while driving and that keeps it running during the day. I had the Power Saving feature ON for last few days and was able to extend the life to 1.5 day instead of 1 day. But then removed it yesterday as what is the point clocking the CPU to half its speed after forking out so much for this phone.

This.

 

[jkmasi]

This.

What I'm talking about is a specific service which is causing a partial wakelock and suddenly draining my battery. This is a new problem for me that I've been seeing since JB update. Until now, my battery life has been excellent - best on any phone so far, and I use my phone as intended. I try to use wifi when possible, and I turn off bluetooth when I'm not in my car, but that's it.

 

[Sandroidfan]

No. 1 culprit for extra battery drain in JB is location based services in Google now.
Just disable some cards using location if you don't use it. Also turn off location report, history under map setting. Then JB should be better than ICS on battery with same apps, settings.

 

[SUroot]

This.

What a ridiculous waste of time and effort.

 

[phil75231]

What a ridiculous waste of time and effort.

You're welcome.

 

[SUroot]

You're welcome.

I am Welcome. You're right. well done. *cookies*

Tweak: Improve (a mechanism or system) by making fine adjustments to it.
Fault: Working badly or unreliably because of imperfections
Waste: Use or expend carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose.