Verizon 4.4.2 update demolishing my battery.

[marflo]

Hmmm.
Yesterday my S4 mini stopped charging. Could this be connected to the kitkat update?It is hard to believe.
You know I got battery heat problem. But replaced with another battery still not charging.
Need to go to store to leave it for fixing. Ufff.

 

[pckarma112]

I tried several battery apps over the past few weeks with no improvement whatsoever. Some just added to the problem. Finally rooted (stock/used towelroot) right after my whiny post on July 13th. By last night I had noticeably better battery life. Uninstalled/deleted/froze many apps using Titanium Backup, LINK2SD and Greenify. Lots of processes still to be researched but it's a promising start.

You got link2sd working? No*disappearing*apps after reboot?

 

[Spluck]

You got link2sd working? No*disappearing*apps after reboot?

I didn't even know that the issue existed. Installed it less than 24 hrs ago. Immediately froze a ton of apps that I couldn't freeze/hibernate w/freebie TB & Greenify. Rebooted right away and it doesn't look like anything went poof. At this point, I'm very happy with LINK2SD.

 

[pckarma112]

I didn't even know that the issue existed. Installed it less than 24 hrs ago. Immediately froze a ton of apps that I couldn't freeze/hibernate w/freebie TB & Greenify. Rebooted right away and it doesn't look like anything went poof. At this point, I'm very happy with LINK2SD.

Strange. Not saying your wrong. But your the first person in 5 years that could not freeze a app with tb. Me thinks I see a relation here..lol xda perhaps..

 

[Spluck]

Strange. Not saying your wrong. But your the first person in 5 years that could not freeze a app with tb. Me thinks I see a relation here..lol xda perhaps..

LOL. No mystery to it. I can't freeze any app with TB or hibernate system apps with Greenify because I don't have the 'donation' versions.

 

[pckarma112]

LOL. No mystery to it. I can't freeze any app with TB or hibernate system apps with Greenify because I don't have the 'donation' versions.

Yea, I understand. You were using the free version. You said you could not freeze apps with it. Of course you cant. Hence my comment. Why not donate? Did you think you could with the free one? I see your a new member. Maybe it was just inexperience?
What I do know for a fact is link2sd has been messed up for some time now. All you have to do is visit the xda forum and read how many angry posts there are about it. I used that app for a fdw years and own the plus version. With ths release of jb. The app went south and caused alot of disasters for people. There is plenty of proof there of this. I dont have a problem with that as I was able to recover with backup. I do have a problem with no e mail reply from dev and no reply on his own thread. Thats just wrong. You dont ignore people who have supported you. To make matters worse. There is a small gang of users that supported this. Reading the posts. Its pretty easy to determine they are all from the same country/region. Now that is really bogus.
Now I read there is a new version and someone there posts that it is working again. Im tempted to install it and try again. But quite frankly. I dont trust any post from that thread any longer.
Since your new and not aware of that issue. Here you go. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=919326 I would hate to see anyone here lose thier phone due to that app.

 

[Spluck]

Yea, I understand. You were using the free version. You said you could not freeze apps with it. Of course you cant. Hence my comment. Why not donate? Did you think you could with the free one? I see your a new member. Maybe it was just inexperience?
What I do know for a fact is link2sd has been messed up for some time now. All you have to do is visit the xda forum and read how many angry posts there are about it. I used that app for a fdw years and own the plus version. With ths release of jb. The app went south and caused alot of disasters for people. There is plenty of proof there of this. I dont have a problem with that as I was able to recover with backup. I do have a problem with no e mail reply from dev and no reply on his own thread. Thats just wrong. You dont ignore people who have supported you. To make matters worse. There is a small gang of users that supported this. Reading the posts. Its pretty easy to determine they are all from the same country/region. Now that is really bogus.
Now I read there is a new version and someone there posts that it is working again. Im tempted to install it and try again. But quite frankly. I dont trust any post from that thread any longer.
Since your new and not aware of that issue. Here you go. [APP][1.6+] Link2SD - XDA Forum I would hate to see anyone here lose thier phone due to that app.

I rooted my phone less than 48 hours ago. The rooting instructions said install TB & backup the phone, so I did. I had no clue what it does other than backup & restore, nor did I know that there were free/'donation' versions. If I ever gain an understanding of all the functions in TB and whether or not they'll suit my purposes, then I'll make a decision about paying for the app.

In the meantime, LINK2SD fills an important gap and it's made a difference in my battery life. At 2pm I'd normally be shutting the phone off to prevent a full drain. It's now 2:15pm and I'm @ 85%. That's huge.

Thanks for the thread link. I used LINK2SD only to freeze apps. I didn't link or move anything, which may be why I'm issue-free ... or it could be the July 14th update. I don't know. I just know that it did exactly what I needed without trashing my phone.

 

[pckarma112]

And that explains why you are not having a issue. The true purpose of link2sd is to save space on the internal of phone. Using to just freeze apps is all good. There are a few free options for that in the store. In any case im glad it's working for you for that purpose. Thanks for reply.

 

[Spluck]

Battery Update: 55% at noon after 3.5 hours of non-stop text, calls, games, music, camera & surfing. Rooting is the best thing I've done since I got the S3. Wish I did it a year ago.

 

[dennygreen]

can I get a screenshot of your battery usage window or gsam app sucker? I'm still getting owned by Android System on every rom.

 

[Spluck]

can I get a screenshot of your battery usage window or gsam app sucker? I'm still getting owned by Android System on every rom.

I'll try to remember to post something tomorrow afternoon.

 

[javamann]

At the risk of repeating what I have said on another thread: have a bunck of chargers and carry one abound on ur briefcase. Just keep ur phone on charger any time you can.

JM

 

[Spluck]

At the risk of repeating what I have said on another thread: have a bunck of chargers and carry one abound on ur briefcase. Just keep ur phone on charger any time you can.

JM

Only if I have to ... and it's looking like I won't have to.

 

[Spluck]

can I get a screenshot of your battery usage window or gsam app sucker? I'm still getting owned by Android System on every rom.

I stupidly plugged in my phone to transfer data, which killed my GSam stats. All I have is a single Batt Mon shot. Sorry about that! Since all of this is Greek to me, please let me know if there's something specific that you want to see and I'll try again tomorrow.

Messaging & Device Idle were below Music ... both at 3%.

 

[dennygreen]

that's perfect. thanks a lot

 

[dennygreen]

At the risk of repeating what I have said on another thread: have a bunck of chargers and carry one abound on ur briefcase. Just keep ur phone on charger any time you can.

JM

like those iPhone people on the new Samsung commercials?

 

[pckarma112]

like those iPhone people on the new Samsung commercials?

It's ironic bringing up a samsung commercial in a thread about batterys on a samsung device. Good laugh.
Truth is. Having a spare battery is good advice and common sense.All the tweaks and apps cant compare to a spare. May be a pita.But its still the best way to beat it.

 

[javamann]

It's ironic bringing up a samsung commercial in a thread about batterys on a samsung device. Good laugh.
Truth is. Having a spare battery is good advice and common sense.All the tweaks and apps cant compare to a spare. May be a pita.But its still the best way to beat it.

Excuse my ignorance but how do u charge both batteries when they are exhausted?

JM

 

[lexluthor]

Excuse my ignorance but how do u charge both batteries when they are exhausted?

JM

External charger.

 

[pckarma112]

Who said your ignorant. If two batterys cant get you through 24 hours? Then I dont know what to tell you. Personally, I own two chargers. I charge them at night while im sleeping.
There would be good line here from captain obvious. Love that commercial. .

 

[NightAngel79]

Daughters S3 having battery issues since update also.

I told her to just factory reset it, but she hasn't listened yet.

Imo factory reset is practically mandatory. The same as if you went from XP to Vista, Vista to Win 7, Win 7 to 8... Etc etc etc....

S3 is starting to show its age. Great phone though. My wife used it for a long time and now my teenage daughter is using it. She is getting fed up with it though. I need to get her upgraded before she gets talked into an apple product 😈

 

[dennygreen]

The unfortunate thing is that I bought the official samsung extended battery so that I could get battery life like this with hardcore use all day:

I had no use for spare batteries at all.

Now, on 4.4.2, that same usage leaves me with 20%.

I just can't believe that they could mess it up so bad. Today it stayed in my pocket all day and android system burned up my battery anyway.

 

[nytmare]

My battery problem has mysteriously fix itself. I mentioned, back in post #16, that "... my S3 seems to be searching for my location excessively (just about every time I looked at my phone it seemed to be searching)". I learned that my phone couldn't get a GPS lock. At all. It was simply searching continuously for where it was. I downloaded many GPS apps that I had hoped would help, but nothing was working. I even took it into my local VWZ store and they couldn't resolve the problem either. I resigned myself to keeping a spare battery close by for the next two months while I wait for my 2 year contract to expire.

Well, I was golfing yesterday when I noticed that my golf app had started giving me distances to the hole. The same golf app hasn't done that since I down loaded Kit Kat. I checked one of my GPS apps and sure enough, the phone had a GPS lock and had a pretty good selection of satellites.

It's still locked today and seems to be working well. As I'm typing this, it's 9:30pm and my phone came off it's charger at 7:15am. I currently have 41% battery life. I'd generally hit 40% at around 11:00am.

Clearly, my battery problem was directly linked to my GPS issue. I don't know why it corrected itself, other than entering data into my golf app, I wasn't doing anything with the phone that would have had any effect on it's ability to lock onto satellites. I know that when I started my round, the golf app wasn't able to detect my location. It plainly said so in a little window of the app (like it has for the past few weeks).

I'm at a loss as to how if fixed itself, but I'm glad it did. If anyone else is having battery issues and has noticed that you S3 is very often trying to find it's location... that's likely the problem. I just wish I could relate how to fix it.

 

[mydian]

The unfortunate thing is that I bought the official samsung extended battery so that I could get battery life like this with hardcore use all day:

I had no use for spare batteries at all.

Now, on 4.4.2, that same usage leaves me with 20%.

I just can't believe that they could mess it up so bad. Today it stayed in my pocket all day and android system burned up my battery anyway.

Your problem is that 6 hour held awake time. You should try to track that down. What's it say when you click on the system wakelock? It could also be a kernel wakelock so check those next time. Something... a setting, an app, something, is keeping your phone awake when the screen is off.

 

[dennygreen]

Nah, those screenshots were from like March 2013 when I got my extended battery. The wakelock was from me listening to podcasts with Doggcatcher all day, and I would still have 60 some percent left.

Shortly after that, my signal at work got worse and Verizon released an update to 4.2.2 I think, and I never saw battery life that good again. I switched over to Carbon 1.8 and it was good enough. But 4.4 kills my battery. I'm testing some 4.3 roms and they seem a little better so far.