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Battery suddenly draining while phone not even in use

B

brownitus

Member
I don't know what the heck's going on but just today the battery has been draining wildly and I've barely even used it! Fully charged at about 1pm, and short of 4 hours later and just 17 minutes of use, it's about 25% down!

QTymW.png

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I have bluetooth and wifi on but I always do, this has not been happening prior to today. I turned off Twitter sync which was running, I only have my Gmail account syncing (Calendars, Contacts and Gmail) but again, that is as before. Only today this is happening and I haven't installed anything differently or otherwise.

P.S. And now I'm at 4h52m on battery with only 1 more minute of Screen Time, and I'm down to 68%!

edit: I have installed Easy Battery Saver but only just as I took the screenshots, I haven't done anything with that app, I want to diagnose this first...
 
If you download "Better Battery Stats" it will tell you which wakelocks are occurring. It costs a small fee. Unfortunately I don't know of a free battery monitor that will tell you the same thing!

If you're willing to buy it, please post a screenshot of the BBS info page as I should be able to help with some of the wake locks.
 
brownitus said:
Okay, I bought it, but what do I do here:

AnIQU.png
Click to expand...

Hmm I suspect that it hasn't been able to build up stats because it hasn't been running while the battery has been draining. You might need to post it again tomorrow once you've recharged and discharged the battery again. :(

I'll watch this thread though and come back when you've posted. You could even recharge your phone now and then let it discharge again if that's possible.

The most common wakelock I've come across is related to WiFi and easily fixable.
 
matttye said:
Hmm I suspect that it hasn't been able to build up stats because it hasn't been running while the battery has been draining. You might need to post it again tomorrow once you've recharged and discharged the battery again. :(

I'll watch this thread though and come back when you've posted. You could even recharge your phone now and then let it discharge again if that's possible.

The most common wakelock I've come across is related to WiFi and easily fixable.
Click to expand...

Okay thanks a bunch, I'm charging it now and then will post again tomorrow with info, appreciate your help.
 
xliderider said:
Have you tried power cycling your phone (off/on)? That should clear out everything that's running.
Click to expand...

Yeah I have rebooted a few times in the last few days as it is so I will do it again, I'm going to let the phone fully charge again though to have a starting point to compare to this current drainage and then reboot. Thanks!
 
This is becoming more and more common. I have the same issue on my phone. It'll just be sitting there on WiFi and after an hour or two I'll be down like 25% with absolutely zero use.

Now this is with no apps running, pretty much everything killed.

Sounds like a WiFi bug that's causeing this randomly to happen. I'm real close to doing an exchange, but just worried that the next phone will have the same issue.
 
sean76 said:
This is becoming more and more common. I have the same issue on my phone. It'll just be sitting there on WiFi and after an hour or two I'll be down like 25% with absolutely zero use.

Now this is with no apps running, pretty much everything killed.

Sounds like a WiFi bug that's causeing this randomly to happen. I'm real close to doing an exchange, but just worried that the next phone will have the same issue.
Click to expand...


You need a new battery compadre.
 
brownitus said:
Yeah I have rebooted a few times in the last few days as it is so I will do it again, I'm going to let the phone fully charge again though to have a starting point to compare to this current drainage and then reboot. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Did you swap in a previously used sd card to your GS3? An incompatible file or messed up file system on the card can cause a lot of problems like freezing, rebooting, and constant card access by the Android system which could drain your battery.

You can test it out by taking the card out and running your phone without the card for a while to see if the battery drain goes away.
 
sean76 said:
This is becoming more and more common. I have the same issue on my phone. It'll just be sitting there on WiFi and after an hour or two I'll be down like 25% with absolutely zero use.

Now this is with no apps running, pretty much everything killed.

Sounds like a WiFi bug that's causeing this randomly to happen. I'm real close to doing an exchange, but just worried that the next phone will have the same issue.
Click to expand...

Using a static IP fixes one of the major battery drains in the device.
 
xliderider said:
Did you swap in a previously used sd card to your GS3? An incompatible file or messed up file system on the card can cause a lot of problems like freezing, rebooting, and constant card access by the Android system which could drain your battery.

You can test it out by taking the card out and running your phone without the card for a while to see if the battery drain goes away.
Click to expand...

Yup I did actually, but last week! Phone has been fine since. However I've seen it doing "Searching for GPS" in notification now for no reason as well. I do think a reboot is going to take care of it as I'm sure some stuff is running that would be sorted out like that.

I just want to run it off full charge with BBS now though to see what the current issue is exactly and hopefully solve it so that I know what it was. It's at 98% right now so I'll post the usage in to the day tomorrow with BBS and hopefully diagnose :)
 
I had a problem with gps and Latitute (which is turned on by default) eating up the battery. I think it was searching for gps signal for Latitude and could not find it at certain times. Turning off Latitude helped. I do not use it. I still have weird battery drain, but not as much and not very often. Might help.
 
^^ I never use Latitude (or Maps or Navigation, the Google GPS stuff is useless for me as I have no data plan and rely on wifi, I bought Sygic instead). However, I think the culprit is TripLog. I'm emailing their support with screenshot.

Okay so I had fully charged the phone last night with BetterBatteryStats installed, I took screenshots this morning before I left for work:

NI75S.png

2ngU7.png

QFkLj.png


As you can see that's 71% gone with only 21 minutes screen time, lol, so obviously something's up. Matttye, if there is more I need to screenshot from BBS please tell me, that's just what I saw bringing up the app.

Thanks!
 
brownitus said:
^^ I never use Latitude (or Maps or Navigation, the Google GPS stuff is useless for me as I have no data plan and rely on wifi, I bought Sygic instead). However, I think the culprit is TripLog. I'm emailing their support with screenshot.

Okay so I had fully charged the phone last night with BetterBatteryStats installed, I took screenshots this morning before I left for work:

NI75S.png

2ngU7.png

QFkLj.png


As you can see that's 71% gone with only 21 minutes screen time, lol, so obviously something's up. Matttye, if there is more I need to screenshot from BBS please tell me, that's just what I saw bringing up the app.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Suspend_backoff is usually caused by a bug in the Chrome web browser. Go into Chrome, go to settings and then developer options, then turn off "tilt scrolling."

L2_hsic is a wake lock caused by the radio (cell radio not fm radio) and there's not much we can do about them unfortunately other than await improved firmware.

Battery-monitor is caused by battery monitoring apps such as better battery stats. Ironically something that can help you solve battery issues also contributes to them, but the best thing to do is uninstall BBS once you're happy with your battery and you've solved the other wake locks.

You're also experiencing wake locks I've never had before. I'm gunna do some research and get back to you.
 
matttye said:
Suspend_backoff is usually caused by a bug in the Chrome web browser. Go into Chrome, go to settings and then developer options, then turn off "tilt scrolling."

L2_hsic is a wake lock caused by the radio (cell radio not fm radio) and there's not much we can do about them unfortunately other than await improved firmware.

Battery-monitor is caused by battery monitoring apps such as better battery stats. Ironically something that can help you solve battery issues also contributes to them, but the best thing to do is uninstall BBS once you're happy with your battery and you've solved the other wake locks.

You're also experiencing wake locks I've never had before. I'm gunna do some research and get back to you.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot, for the first I'm assuming Chrome is the built-in browser, yes? Because I don't have that setting. In Browser > Settings I get this:

h0M14.png


(I didn't find Tilt Scrolling in any of the settings.)
 
brownitus said:
Thanks a lot, for the first I'm assuming Chrome is the built-in browser, yes? Because I don't have that setting. In Browser > Settings I get this:

h0M14.png


(I didn't find Tilt Scrolling in any of the settings.)
Click to expand...

Chrome is Google's web browser and you get it from the play store. The one included by default isn't Chrome.

Suspend_backoff can be caused by any app, I just mentioned Chrome as it's probably the most popular app that causes it. The next thing you could do is try uninstalling apps one by one and see if the problem goes away.
 
Have you installed anything recently, brownitus? I just noticed today my battery has been draining on its own as well, but I also installed and played a few games yesterday, so I'm suspecting that one of them isn't shutting itself off, and am now waiting after a phone reboot to see if it's stopped draining to and then try them one by one to see. My other possible problem is that I also updated a handful of apps yesterday, hopefully not one of them is running amok.
 
I have installed a few things indeed, I have just uninstalled several and rebooted, I'm going to post screenshots later on of BBS after some time with this reboot and cleaning out of apps.
 
Well a quick first update, I left the phone only on mute (no other changes after reboot, still wifi on), took almost an hour nap just now and checked the phone:

gOwTW.png

kIDdQ.png

LoSLb.png

d9CCG.png


So 1% in an hour which is back to normal, for sure. The reboot must have ended whatever junk processes were running in the background, and/or something I uninstalled (8 or 9 apps) were in part or wholly the culprits.

I'm going to keep an eye on the usage and update again later on. I'm wondering if it is "normal" again do I uninstall BBS? (I know I bought it and can reinstall it again if need be.)

edit: Does anyone have any experience with Power Controls? I really like the widget a lot, just wondering if there have been any known issues with it.
 
brownitus said:
Well a quick first update, I left the phone only on mute (no other changes after reboot, still wifi on), took almost an hour nap just now and checked the phone:

gOwTW.png

kIDdQ.png

LoSLb.png

d9CCG.png


So 1% in an hour which is back to normal, for sure. The reboot must have ended whatever junk processes were running in the background, and/or something I uninstalled (8 or 9 apps) were in part or wholly the culprits.

I'm going to keep an eye on the usage and update again later on. I'm wondering if it is "normal" again do I uninstall BBS? (I know I bought it and can reinstall it again if need be.)

edit: Does anyone have any experience with Power Controls? I really like the widget a lot, just wondering if there have been any known issues with it.
Click to expand...

Yeah uninstall BBS once you're happy with the battery for sure.
 
brownitus said:
Well a quick first update, I left the phone only on mute (no other changes after reboot, still wifi on), took almost an hour nap just now and checked

So 1% in an hour which is back to normal, for sure. The reboot must have ended whatever junk processes were running in the background, and/or something I uninstalled (8 or 9 apps) were in part or wholly the culprits.

I'm going to keep an eye on the usage and update again later on. I'm wondering if it is "normal" again do I uninstall BBS? (I know I bought it and can reinstall it again if need be.)

edit: Does anyone have any experience with Power Controls? I really like the widget a lot, just wondering if there have been any known issues with it.
Click to expand...
Do you remember what apps you uninstalled? May help others.
 
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