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Help Battery Drain due to Software Bug w/GPS?

Are you able to replicate this same issue?

  • Total voters
    112
@aminaked - After 8 hours of sleep w/o GPS on, I lose "10%" of battery, running time 1.8%. After 8 hours of sleep w/ GPS on after exiting maps, I lose "10%" of battery, running time 100%.

I put the percentages in quotes because I understand Android's battery meter doesn't have too great a granularity, I also acknowledge that 8 hours therefore may not be long enough to detect the difference - but besides it's all moot because:

lexluthor said:
Great news all!

I installed the leaked Froyo 2.2 and this bug does NOT exist.

I run the exact same test and my phone does indeed go to sleep after the GPS is activated.
Click to expand...

Confirmed.
 
fwaggle said:
@aminaked - After 8 hours of sleep w/o GPS on, I lose "10%" of battery, running time 1.8%. After 8 hours of sleep w/ GPS on after exiting maps, I lose "10%" of battery, running time 100%.
Click to expand...

Hm, seems like you're not seeing the bug. Who knows, maybe your phone is different? Or maybe you're doing something different. Or maybe the bug happens sporadically. I don't know. Should the people seeing this problem return their phones even though the update will fix it? Maybe!

***

Great news on the fix Mr. Luthor!
 
Here's what Matt (Motorola employee who supervises their forums) posted earlier today.

"I wish I could share the various emails and conversations I've had about this. It's quite complicated. However, I am meeting with the team this afternoon and we're going to try and hash out an explanation that doesn't require a degree in electronic engineering to understand. I'll try to post it sometime this evening.

In general, it looks like a) some of this is real, b) most of what's real is fairly low-impact, and c) it will be fixed.

Back later with details."


The thread is here:
https://supportforums.motorola.com/thread/33608?start=0&tstart=0
 
explanation that doesn't require a degree in electronic engineering to understand
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Motorola is trying to sell extended batteries at $50 each. We understand that just fine.

a) some of this is real, b) most of what's real is fairly low-impact, and c) it will be fixed.
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a) We know it's real
b) There's a tiny bit that is hi-impact so that makes the whole thing hi-impact
c) It's already fixed on the leaked version

Jeesh!
 
Can anyone chime in that the problem is fixed with 2.2? You can have GPS toggled on all the time and it only burns down battery when specifically being used?! Too good to be true!
 
Yea I just tried it too. Its fixed in 2.2

GPS bug, dead pixel fixed...nice. Of course 2.2 might introduce some other bugs...lol
 
I don't have the leaked update installed. For anyone that has it installed, what is your reaction to this (from droidforums.net):

Wifi toggled on leaves Droid X "running"? Froyo 2.2
So in Froyo I'm finding that if I leave my wifi toggled on that it keeps my phone "running" as checked in spare parts which is killing my battery. This is even with my wifi sleep policy set to turn wifi off when screen turns off? Any way to fix this?

Also, I think it may only be happening when wifi is switched on but I'm not on a wifi network (out of the house). Does this mean that's it's just constantly searching for wifi when not logged on even when the screen is turned off?

On another note, the GPS bug seems to be fixed in Froyo!
Click to expand...
 
^lol. I will test that and see whats going on. Might be another thread similar to this popping up soon....
 
Latest post by Matt of Motorola:

"So, here’s what I have to report.
We were able to reproduce this “no-sleep” state when we opened Google Maps and then exited the program. This is what you’re seeing when you check SpareParts, etc.

The impact is minimal. I pushed the team for a more precise answer, asking what the impact might be on a full battery if this happened right after taking it off the charger. The estimate I received was that it may, at most, shorten battery life by 2 percent over a full charge under your normal usage of the phone.

You can end this state very simply. After you leave Google Maps, turn off GPS. You can turn it right on again, but it will end this no-sleep state. (“No-sleep” is my term, by the way.)

The best news is that this will be fixed through a software update. We’re grateful to you all for finding and reporting this."
 
The impact is minimal. I pushed the team for a more precise answer, asking what the impact might be on a full battery if this happened right after taking it off the charger. The estimate I received was that it may, at most, shorten battery life by 2 percent over a full charge under your normal usage of the phone.
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Minimal, 2 percent, fairly low impact, some of this is real.

Get real, corporate swine!
 
lexluthor said:
I don't think it was ever confirmed if this bug existed on the original Droid with 2.1, so not sure if seeing if Droid with Froyo has the bug or not gets us anything.

I did receive a reply back from my Motorola support ticket, but it just referenced me to look at their standard documents to troubleshoot battery problems.

I replied back urging them to pass this along to management/engineering, but I've probably reached a dead end with them.

I think we just have to hope this is fixed in the Froyo build we are going to get.
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I have 2.1, just tested your theory after being stumped at how so many people claim this battery is awesome.

after 6 hours:
42 mins talk time
1hr 2 mins internet
the rest the phone was sitting still, I had 30% battery and 100% running.
 
i deleted task manager from my phone and it started working. i was having problems with my battery not staying charged. it could be at 100% and i would go to bed and wake up and the phone is off!!! because the battery would be drained and i was having to charge my phone like 3 times a day and as soon as i deleted that task manager crap from my phone it went back to normal. so i would suggest you guys trying that and see if it helps. it helped mine. its crazy. i don't understand it, but the battery is lasting much longer now like it should...:)
 
2.2 _appears_ to have fixed this issue for me. I've deleted my tasker profiles and turned GPS on. After using a GPS enabled app, my phone will now sleep. Can anyone else confirm this?
 
humungus said:
2.2 _appears_ to have fixed this issue for me. I've deleted my tasker profiles and turned GPS on. After using a GPS enabled app, my phone will now sleep. Can anyone else confirm this?
Click to expand...

I can confirm. I leave my GPS on now. Various apps will use it and then the phone will sleep properly afterwards.
 
murdoc158 said:
I was barely breaking 10 hours before finding this thread. After setting up Tasker to kill GPS after exiting a handful of apps my battery was around 20 hours. However, I recently underclocked my CPU at idle using SetCPU and my phone just died after 36 hours of being unplugged. I've got the CPU underclocked from 1000 MHz to 300 MHz at screen off idle. The CPU steps down incrementally from 1000 MHz a few times as battery left goes below 30%. Really impressed with the battery now that I have full control over what is running and how much usage the phone has.
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This sounds awesome! Is there a guide somewhere that explains how to set all of this up?
 
I updated to 2.2 hoping this problem would be fixed. However, I just now checked my phone run time and it was at 100% with GPS on. I turned it off and rebooted and now I am at 49% run time on 2.2 with GPS off. I don't understand what this issue is.
 
Can someone explain why i charged my phone to full. Took it off charger and within 20 mins was down to 80%??????!!!!!!!!
 
I'm not seeing any ill effects on battery life from a 100% run time. To test it, I noted the battery level at 12am this morning. It had just turned to 50%. Cell, GPS, WIFI, and Bluetooth were on. I did not use the phone until 8:30am or so and there was still 50% battery left. Around 9:30 it went to 40% after some minor use.

So I lost 10% battery in 9.5 hours with 100% run time. I'm not convinced that run time has any effect on battery life.

Can someone post a test protocol which that shows a negative effect of 100% run time on battery life?
 
I know it's not directly related to this thread but I've noticed 100% run time can be weird. Used to when I was 100% run time there was something in partial wake that was causing it and it would also affect my batter. Here recently my phone has been showing 100% run time but when I go to partial wake there is nothing in there. Just the usual things with a tiny little bit, nothing like usually shows when something is keeping the phone awake. I've also noticed that with this 100% running and no partial wake it isn't affecting my battery the same. Has anyone else experienced anything similar?
 
Wife's X, charge over night, down to 40 percent by noon with next to no use (GPS on). Deleted the stock weather widget and manually stopped GPS. Has been at 40 percent since--now for a day and a half (very light use).

Ran OP's test and can confirm.
 
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