Root Serious Battery Issues Post-Root

[Touk]

I'm new to rooting, this Incredible is my first device I've rooted. Still, I didn't just spontaneously root, I tried to read up on everything beforehand and give myself a few weeks to weigh my options. Anyway, I've got a custom ROM running for a few days now, but ever since I rooted, by battery life took a drastic turn for the worse. I'm losing about 15-20% battery per hour, regardless of whether the screen is on or not. Meanwhile, my phone is taking about 6 hours or so to charge to full. Before rooting my battery lasted for practically the entire day, and charging was completely normal. I'm really not sure what I did to cause this, so I'm wondering if anyone here has any insight.

To be clear, I had an Incredible with OTA 2.2 before all this. In the process, I:

• Rooted using unrEVOked 3
• Then upgraded to unrEVOked forever, after learning I needed s-off
• Installed Clockwork Recovery (part of unrEVOked)
• Flashed new radio
• Flashed Cyanogen 6.0.2 using ROM Manager

Immediately after this I noticed my battery was draining faster than normal. Everything is running smoothly, I have no issues with actual performance. Early this morning I tried to see if it was something with Cyanogen, so I wiped that and installed ShadowROM instead. Again, performance is perfect, but my battery life is horrendous. Looking though my battery usage statistics, nothing really stands out as being a problematic program. I did notice in battery history, though, that under 'other usage', 'Running' is reportedly 100% (additionally, 'Screen on' is only at 16.4%). Again, I'm not an expert on this, but it seems to me that something isn't letting my phone actually sleep.

So does anyone have any ideas on this? I'm afraid to backtrack too much in fear of seriously damaging my phone. I'm hoping that someone has encountered this problem before.

 

[iowabowtech]

I did notice in battery history, though, that under 'other usage', 'Running' is reportedly 100% (additionally, 'Screen on' is only at 16.4%). Again, I'm not an expert on this, but it seems to me that something isn't letting my phone actually sleep.

Certainly appears that way. You using Spare Parts for batt history? Check under CPU usage. Any standouts there?

 

[Touk]

I am indeed using Spare Parts. Under CPU usage, the only thing that actually has a visible bar is 'mediaserver', looking like less than 10%. Within the detailed information, total time is at 3h 31mins (again this is since noon today). Nothing else under CPU usage seems to be significant.

 

[iowabowtech]

Do you have Nimbuzz installed by chance?

 

[Touk]

I don't.

Looking again under Usage Statistics, Launcher has the highest Usage Time by a wide margin, and I also noticed this was true with Cyanogen. I never really looked at this on my phone pre-root. Is this typical?

 

[Fatal]

Go to the market and install SystemPanel Lite (free) see what's using your resources, I use this method to catch crappily built resource hog apps and remove them. I had a similar issue as you did.

Also, check under Settings and Accounts & Sync, if you don't use some stuff there like News, Weather, Stocks, etc. You can disable them from using your 3G or WiFi resources for unneccesary content, unless you use them of course.

 

[iowabowtech]

Good idea to get a 2nd opinion from System Panel.

One more question too. You do a lot of vids or streaming media, music, hulu, etc, etc? And on that same note, have you installed any new media players lately? I'm eventually making it to a point, just want to get some info first.

 

[Touk]

I downloaded System Panel (thank you for this, I wasn't aware of the app and its a great tool!). Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be telling me anything new. It's reporting that my CPU is running at a constant 98-100%, yet there are still no outstanding applications shown. The only app listed which shows any significant CPU usage is System Panel itself. Everything else is practically at 0. When I look at the detailed CPU activity, "Nice" is accounting for about 95-99%, while System and User are at 1-2% each. I'm not even sure what "Nice" is... Honestly, nothing else in this app is throwing a red flag at me, but perhaps I'm not sure looking in the right places.

Iowa, with typical usage, yes, I stream music on a daily basis. Since I rooted, though, I wiped my phone clean of apps and have not streamed anything. I've only downloaded the necessities so far (Swype, ChompSMS, ROM Manager, etc), no media players or anything like that.

Last night, I thought I may have figured it out. Embarrassingly, in the confusion of everything I did to my phone, I overlooked the fact that my GPS was set on for the past few days straight. I disabled it, and have seen (hardly) a slight increase in battery power. Unfortunately, that wasn't the solution. Still, even with GPS and 3G disabled, my battery is still draining at about 15-20% per hour. Any ideas yet? Am I going to have to just wipe this all and try again?

 

[iowabowtech]

Well if you can link "Nice" to a specific app, that's probably your answer. I was headed in a different direction with my questions...perhaps a file on your SD card since at the time, no app was standing out.

Below is a thread where a user had a similar problem. This is pretty much what I was going to recommend you try also, especially with your multi-media usage. If you run across a song, vid, pic, etc who's filename starts with "Nice", might want to start there.

Not necessarily related though, IDK.

http://androidforums.com/incredible-support-troubleshooting/199432-rogue-app.html

 

[Touk]

That did it. I went through and deleted a handful of unnecessary files from my SD card. I'm not sure which, specifically, was the offensive file, but I got it. My phone is back to functional. Thanks for the help!

EDIT: I forgot to add, that when I transfered my files to my desktop, none of them caused any errors, so I couldn't pinpoint just one file.

 

[zedwards]

I saw you mentioned mediaserver...this really drained my phone and had it running hot with having a 32 gb disk of music in (well only 8 gb of music on though). Supposedly one can delete the app, but I never ended up doing that.

Also, why are you uploading a rom? I think it's a good question for people esp when new to ask themselves. I have always found roms to suck more battery life. I know they are supposed to be more efficient, but right now, this seems to be my case. So I went with the stock, rooted, added wifi tether and i have had great battery life since.

 

[nkk]

I saw you mentioned mediaserver...this really drained my phone and had it running hot with having a 32 gb disk of music in (well only 8 gb of music on though). Supposedly one can delete the app, but I never ended up doing that.

Also, why are you uploading a rom? I think it's a good question for people esp when new to ask themselves. I have always found roms to suck more battery life. I know they are supposed to be more efficient, but right now, this seems to be my case. So I went with the stock, rooted, added wifi tether and i have had great battery life since.

He is not uploading a ROM. If anything, he would be flashing one. Also, ROM is (basically) the OS. You are running a ROM right now. Having a ROM does not cause worse battery life. Certain ROMs may, but to generalize like that is pretty ignorant.

These all may seem like pedantic points, but terminology (and accuracy of use) is a big deal when you are talking about things like tech, where two things mean totally different things (uploading vs flashing)...

Nkk