Help Battery help

[clb2196]

Let me preface this by saying I've had no battery problems. I can usually get through the workday fine, even on 4g.

The past few days, something changed. This morning, my phone has been unplugged for 10 minutes, and is down to 80%. Yesterday it dropped to 30% in 3 hours, with only 20 minutes of screen time. I tired swapping batteries, I'm using a different one today than yesterday.

Any ideas? I downloaded better battery stats, but it doesn't seem to be showing anything out of the ordinary.

 

[jbdan]

Sounds like possibly an app causing the sudden drain. Have you rebooted the phone?

What, if any, new apps have you installed prior to the weird drain? Have you changed any of your sync settings for your sync-able apps?

 

[Deleted User]

Download BetterBatteryStats.

[APP] BetterBatteryStats adds battery history back to Gingerbread - xda-developers

 

[clb2196]

Download BetterBatteryStats.

[APP] BetterBatteryStats adds battery history back to Gingerbread - xda-developers

I did. It doesn't seem to show anything obvious causing issues that I can see. All the wake locks seem to be 30s or under. I haven't installed any apps, or changed settings. Could be an app on auto update or something? But there aren't any apps showing up high up on the battery stats. Im at a loss

 

[jbdan]

I did. It doesn't seem to show anything obvious causing issues that I can see. All the wake locks seem to be 30s or under. I haven't installed any apps, or changed settings. Could be an app on auto update or something? But there aren't any apps showing up high up on the battery stats. Im at a loss

Maybe just a weird random anomaly give it another day and see if it continues...

 

[clb2196]

Here's another weird thing- I had it plugged in in the car, and it wasn't charging. It's the same charger I've always used in the car, it's in a 1 amp plug. Normally I can use Music and Nav and it'll still charge, today I was using just Music, and it was still steadily falling. In the 2 months I've had this phone, it's never lost charge on that charger before. It's plugged in at work now and is charging up, so that's good at least.

 

[Proph]

this may sound like an odd suggestion but what do you have set up for mail accounts? every version of android i have had (except 4.0 because i figured this out so it may be there its just i know better now) if i set my pop or imap accounts to download attachments or pictures automatically and have a short time to check will drain the battery if a large file comes in.

what happens is the phone checks and you have a new email, it starts downloading the picture or file, 5 minutes pass and the file is just about done downloading but the mail app checks and low and behold the same email is there and not read yet because the first download isn't done, so the mail app starts trying to download it again. this loop will keep going and the mail app won't show up in any of the battery or data usage stats.

now it is habbit for me to not auto-download any type of attachment especially on accounts where i have the mail checking frequently.

if you haven't installed any new apps something an existing app is doing is causing it and is stuck in a loop.

if you really want the answer just install the android sdk, plug the phone into your pc and put it into USB debugging mode. you will see everything the phone and any app is doing. but if your wake locks are low it is something that is firing up the 3g/4g radio (which doesn't show up on battery stats) and kills a battery pretty quick to leave that thing on.

 

[clb2196]

I don't think it's the mail, I checked my email when it was on the charger this morning, and didn't get any in the time that the battery was draining.

Hm, so something can turn on the radio and not show in the stats? That's interesting, because yesterday I was in CT, and the area I was in has low to no 4G, so I can definitely see trying to connect to 4G draining the battery. Also this morning I was driving through a low 4G area, too. At home and at work I get a nice string signal, but in between it's not as good. I'm trying to keep an eye on the running services- my Pure Grid calendar widget seemed to be pretty high up on the battery widget, and I think it did update recently, so I uninstalled it, and I'll see if that helps.

 

[clb2196]

Maybe someone can help me interpret the better battery stats? I'm looking at the partial wake locks since the last charge:

Facebook Servcie: 1 m 25 s (85 s) Count: 24 2%

ActivityManager-Launch
Android Service
1 m 9 2 (69 s) Count: 253 1.6%

*backup*
Android Service
51 s (51 s) Count: 435 1.2 %

Alarm Manager
Android System
44 s (44 s) Count: 716 1%

Those are the top few. Is that normal? My awake time is 31 m and my screen on time is 22 m.

 

[Tim K]

I'll tell you what seems most effective to me.

Only sync the items you NEED to sync. Seems like syncs get hung up a lot or run a lot unnecessarily. I only sync:
Gmail
Calendar
Contacts
Browser

google+, pictures, etc. all seemed to cause excessive cpu wake time.

I also recently found "Android System" to be using a lot of cpu time.... not every day, but when it did it was huge. Through betterbatterystats I determined *backup* was causing almost constant partial wake locks. I disable google backup and that stopped wake locking. To give you an idea of how bad it was, bbs showed the bar almost all red all the way to the right with the count in the 1000's.

Now if I look at my battery graph, there is almost no "awake" time except for screen on time, which is how it should be. Minimal background processes....not constant background processes.

 

[clb2196]

*backup* is causing a lot of wakelocks on mine, too. What does Google backup do? Or what do I lose by disabling it?

Alarm Manager seem to be my other very high wake lock issue. Anyone know what that is? Also ActivityManager-Launch.

 

[Tim K]

backups stores all your settings and everything on google's server. That way if you ever need to wipe your phone or get a new phone you don't have to reset all your wifi access points, bluetooth connections, ringtones, etc.

For me, I'd rather not have my phone active for 11 hours twice a week.... at least that's what it was doing to be this week. I have Titanium backup anyway. Its not automatic, but it also won't F my battery life.

I have launch and alarm manager too on the list but they have less than a minute each so I am not too concerned. Now that I can click on my battery graph for the breakdown and see that my cpu isn't awake unless my screen is on (very little background activity), I'm good to go.

 

[clb2196]

Well, something fixed it. It's been off the charger since 8:30 (I haven't used it) and it's still at 97%. So whatever was draining the battery when it wasn't being used is gone. I disabled the Google backup, so it very well could be that. Thanks for the help!

 

[di7za]

what is activitmanager-launch, i have the same problem with it?