Help Battery Suddenly Draining Quickly

[Jonathan Sharp]

So I've owned my Motorola Edge Plus since around September, 2020 (about 8 months now), and so far it's been great. The battery has been especially nice, as I would start the day with it around 90% (I don't charge it overnight), and I would end the day with the battery usually around 60-70%, pretty much never seeing it go below 50%.

However, about a week ago the battery suddenly started to drain extremely quickly, going from 99% to 64% overnight. No apps were running in the background, and I restarted the phone multiple times over multiple days---sometimes even leaving it off for a while before turning it back on. No matter what I did, nothing seemed to help. I also tried installing a phone cleaning app (Phone Master) a few days ago, but I didn't notice any significant changes. Now, about a week after the problem started, the battery is back to its normal drain speed. Last night it was at 99%, and this morning after about 8 hours it was at 94%. I haven't done anything new to fix the problem in a few days, so I have no idea what changed.

The problem seems to be fixed for now, but I have no idea what caused it do begin with, and how it got fixed.
I would love some help/advice and what might have caused this to prevent the problem from resurfacing in the future.

Thanks

 

[ocnbrze]

first off ditch phone master. they tend to cause more problems then anything else. second, i'm not sure what happened. it could have been a number of things which would be hard to pinpoint now.

i would not loose any sleep over this as the situation has seems to correct itself.

 

[svim]

I tend to agree with @ocnbrze Get rid of that Phone Master app, apps in that category are debatably effective in real-world settings. In a lab with specific criteria they can make a big difference in optimization numbers, but nobody actually uses their phones in a controlled experiment setting. These types of apps are great for peace of mind, but this does not necessarily also mean they're actually doing something of substance. Go into your Settings >> Apps menu, find and open the Phone Master app entry, tap on the Force stop button, find and tap on Clear data (this wipes the app's config data, and the app's cache), then tap on the Uninstall button. This should remove the app completely. Restart your phone just to be sure the app's service, if it was running in the background, is also killed.

Regarding whatever app/service was draining the battery so significantly, since it apparently corrected itself that indicates it was probably just a one-off software glitch. Look in your Settings >> Battery menu. Does the power history graph show anything out-of-sorts?

 

[Lebb]

I have the exact same problem! But unfortunately no fix for me yet. Tried everything. Removing apps, restarting. Going to secure mode. Turning on airplane mode... But the battery drain is the same. And the phone is always slightly hotter than normal. Haven't factory reset because is a hassle to configure some apps but after reading your post that its fixing itself it's a relief. Maybe a Google service update bug or something...

 

[ocnbrze]

I have the exact same problem! But unfortunately no fix for me yet. Tried everything. Removing apps, restarting. Going to secure mode. Turning on airplane mode... But the battery drain is the same. And the phone is always slightly hotter than normal. Haven't factory reset because is a hassle to configure some apps but after reading your post that its fixing itself it's a relief. Maybe a Google service update bug or something...

have you looked at your power consumption history as suggested by @svim? it should show you what apps are consuming the most power.

how bad is your drain? what do you do on your phone? play games? watch movies? stream?

 

[Lebb]

have you looked at your power consumption history as suggested by @svim? it should show you what apps are consuming the most power.

how bad is your drain? what do you do on your phone? play games? watch movies? stream?

Full battery lasts about 22 hours. Nope nothing fancy. Most time is listening to audiobooks, and meetings with google meet. Havent changed this behaviour for months and before this happened the battery would last days. As i mentioned, if I restart the phone on secure mode ( non google apps allowed ), on airplane mode, and dont touch for some time it will drain as quickly.

 

[ocnbrze]

Full battery lasts about 22 hours. Nope nothing fancy. Most time is listening to audiobooks, and meetings with google meet. Havent changed this behaviour for months and before this happened the battery would last days. As i mentioned, if I restart the phone on secure mode ( non google apps allowed ), on airplane mode, and dont touch for some time it will drain as quickly.

22 hours sounds pretty good to me. your battery will still drain even in airplane mode. was there an update before you noticed a change in your battery behavior? and again you might want to take a look at your apps power consumption and see where the drain is coming from.

 

[Lebb]

22 hours sounds pretty good to me. your battery will still drain even in airplane mode. was there an update before you noticed a change in your battery behavior? and again you might want to take a look at your apps power consumption and see where the drain is coming from.

You are completely right on a regular phone but compared to 72+ hours ( normal use whatsap youtube music ) on this massive 5000 mA battery, 20~ hours is nothing... No updates that I remember, just the regular background autoUpdates from the playstore, but nothing special and on airplane mode this phone should last at least an entire week! But nope, 20~ hours. On the apps power consumption there is nothing outstanding the highest % is at 5% and is the screen...

 

[ocnbrze]

You are completely right on a regular phone but compared to 72+ hours ( normal use whatsap youtube music ) on this massive 5000 mA battery, 20~ hours is nothing... No updates that I remember, just the regular background autoUpdates from the playstore, but nothing special and on airplane mode this phone should last at least an entire week! But nope, 20~ hours. On the apps power consumption there is nothing outstanding the highest % is at 5% and is the screen...

well my 4300 mAh last me about 20 hours....if that. but i use it as my main gps which i use for work all day. i also play games, stream youtube videos and watch movies on it all day every day.

the fact that you see a behavior change in the battery is unusual though. hard to say what is going on. your phone is not that old yet for the battery to deteriorate that fast. one thing to consider is to try doing a factory reset. also another consideration is to try and put the phone in safe mode for a day and see how battery life is during that period.

 

[mountstog]

I've run into the same issue. My phone (Motorola Edge Plus) battery (which I've had for about 10 months now) worked great until a couple months ago. For about a week or two the battery was draining much faster than usual, but then I guess the issue fixed itself, and the battery life went back to normal. Then, about a week ago the battery started to drain quickly again, and it stopped charging correctly when I plugged it in. I tried a variety of charging cables, and some of them worked better than others, but even when the phone charged it charged slowly and would stop charging once it got to about 60 or 70 percent. There haven't been any updates, and my phone usage hasn't changed. It seems to be working again today (it charged properly last night, and the battery seems to be holding like usual now), but I'm not sure what's going on.

 

[Benavelo]

I have the exact same problem. Battery used to last forever and suddenly, it started draining. The weird thing is that it lasted for a few weeks and then the battery came back good for a few weeks, and then, back to the draining.

Battery was good until fall 2021. At some point in December (I think) it started draining like crazy. Went back good sometimes in the winter, and now, since about a month, it is draining again.

Example of the "draining": On a regular day, the battery would be at around 80-85% at night time. Suddenly, it is going down to about 20-30%. This is without using the phone more than 10 minutes during the day.

The issue must be some kind of automatic Motorola update.

This issue is NOT caused by:
-A different use of the phone (I use my phone 10 minutes a day - hasn't changed)
-Apps running in background (all apps have very little use).
-The battery itself (lack of performance nor deterioration)

I've try downloading apps to monitor usage and battery life - everything is normal on that front.

If someone ever find a solution, you'd be my hero.

 

[Benavelo]

Update: Things got worst (cell wouldn't start anymore - it was going into an infinite loop at the startup) so luckily, I was under a year of the purchase and returned it to the manufacturer. Got a new one - work fine now. Good luck to you out there !