slimbobaggins
Well-Known Member
Reset all app preferences, and it broke the wifi lock. No idea what the offender was
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CAT S60 battery life issue with 6.0.1 (Wifi drain)
- Thread starter slimbobaggins
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- cat s60
I do not have this issue. I do not use the stock browser that comes with the phone and have uninstalled it, maybe that was the cause? Just an idea of something that may be overlooked.
slimbobaggins
Well-Known Member
Maybe? I don't know what it was, but it hasn't returned, and I swear my battery life seems better after the update than iy was before.
I unfortunately don't have a way to compare as I got the update on the day it was released which was the day I got my phone haha.
@slimbobaggins
It may not be fixed I Just realized something today. Although my wifi usage time does not increase the used power amount does. I was at 285 mAh used at 15 minutes of wifi on time.
Now I am at ~700mAh used at 15 minutes wifi on time. About 6 hours of time inbetween these readings.. Interesting.
I am at High accuracy GPS but I have wifi scanning disabled. Which on other phones actually disabled power usage also...
Gonna reset app prefs. And see if that fixes.
It may not be fixed I Just realized something today. Although my wifi usage time does not increase the used power amount does. I was at 285 mAh used at 15 minutes of wifi on time.
Now I am at ~700mAh used at 15 minutes wifi on time. About 6 hours of time inbetween these readings.. Interesting.
I am at High accuracy GPS but I have wifi scanning disabled. Which on other phones actually disabled power usage also...
Gonna reset app prefs. And see if that fixes.
Same deal here, Cavell. I used wifi for about 30 minutes the other day to download a couple of apps then turned it off. By the time I was ready to charge the phone, wifi accounted for 30% of battery usage and it had been turned off the entire time. Scanning is disabled, no apps have got permission to turn wifi on for location.
Not fixed, but improved. I'm still getting almost 3 days of uptime without trying too hard.
Not fixed, but improved. I'm still getting almost 3 days of uptime without trying too hard.
slimbobaggins
Well-Known Member
Okay, I changed things back, sorry about that guys.
Does your wifi consumption show up as its own heading on the list?
I had wifi on for an hour or two last night, and it doesn't make my list, and I'm on day 3 of this charge. I probably had it one the prior day as well.
So the issue happened again today and reboot stopped the drain. So when you are ghost drain just reboot. It is a system issue not an app, android not cats fault.
And wifi does show up as my number one power draw, that should always be screen for me haha.
I will monitor and see how long a reboot fixes the issue and maybe figure out what causes it.
Got to say this is starting to make me pretty angry. The update that was supposed to fix the problem has done absolutely zero. 12 hours off charge and I am looking at Wi-Fi having used 1000mAh of battery and google play services almost another 400mAh which brings my phone down to <70% when it has been in my pocket all day at work with less than an hour of screen on time and a few SMS sent and received (I have a work phone).
WIFI HAS BEEN TURNED OFF THE ENTIRE TIME.
Sure, I could reset my app prefs/ delete all data for google play services, reboot the phone etc etc and maybe it would be ok for a couple of days but the point is, I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO.
Some people may be happy with the current situation because they are still easily getting more battery life than their previous devices but that is not the point. I am carrying around a big, hefty phone and I expect it to have a big, hefty battery life.
I also expect that if I have the wifi radio permanently disabled, it isn't going to constantly account for the biggest portion of battery usage of my device. Even using battery saving mode doesn't stop this happening, it is a joke.
What is worse is that the phone is so locked down that real developers may never be offered a shot at fixing this mess; there are a hundred things that could be done using custom kernels to address this situation, along with a pile of other power saving benefits possible through root access and it is looking a lot like we will not see access to any of them.
I'm not joking when I say this; if CAT handed a few of these devices to key players on the XDA developer forums and unlocked the bootloader, we would very easily see 5 days of usage out of these brilliant pieces of hardware. I have seen it done before.
One of my previous android devices was an Xperia Z3 compact. It was a pretty handy little unit out of the box and would give me a couple of days just like the S60, but with a much smaller battery.
Sony offered an official channel to unlock the bootloader in exchange for your warranty. Within a few weeks the development community turned those devices into tiny pocket rockets with absolutely unbelievable staying power. I was regularly seeing 4.5 days with my normal usage patterns, and that was with WIFI turned on at home! During battery testing, it wasn't unheard of for me to leave the house, do a full day at work and get home with only 5% of the battery gone.
In my eyes, this should be the standard, not some ill-gotten anomaly that we have to use an exploit to hack around and jam between the system and user partitions, or wait 3 years for.
Of course, the Z3C was too fragile, else I would still be using it today; if you zipped up your pants too fast the rear glass would crack.
The S60 is a superior device to everything I have owned before in so many ways, it is ideal for my work and for my lifestyle but it is being seriously held back by the attitude of Cat Phones/ Bullitt Group towards the intended openness of the android environment.
Their in-house software engineers have failed to address the shortcomings of the android 6 platform, and yet they refuse to let the community at large help them to unleash the potential of what they have created.
This is the path of fear. It is the path of cowardice and worst of all, it is the path of least resistance for them as a company.
They could easily make the choice to step up and take the place of nexus devices as they wither and die. Become a true icon with this freak of a phone but instead they will more than likely keep their bootloaders, and their battery potential to themselves in the grim hopes that by keeping the whole thing locked down they will secure a few corporate contracts which demand encryption and zero ability to play with the device.
Good luck to them, they created a hell of a piece of hardware, but it could have been so much more.
For me, I will forever feel like I am leasing this phone from their company even though I bought it outright.
Every time I look at the battery percentage it is like running my tongue over a cut in the roof of my mouth; sure the battery life is still good, but why are you not trying to make it as good as it can be?
We as customers took a lot of sacrifices in specs and size, and still paid the price of a premium flagship; should we not expect the device to reach its potential? At the very least, do something about this wifi issue and google play services getting locked in perpetual consumption...perhaps it is fixed in nougat?
All the best everyone, I'll be out in the rain taking photos of frogs and mushrooms.
WIFI HAS BEEN TURNED OFF THE ENTIRE TIME.
Sure, I could reset my app prefs/ delete all data for google play services, reboot the phone etc etc and maybe it would be ok for a couple of days but the point is, I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO.
Some people may be happy with the current situation because they are still easily getting more battery life than their previous devices but that is not the point. I am carrying around a big, hefty phone and I expect it to have a big, hefty battery life.
I also expect that if I have the wifi radio permanently disabled, it isn't going to constantly account for the biggest portion of battery usage of my device. Even using battery saving mode doesn't stop this happening, it is a joke.
What is worse is that the phone is so locked down that real developers may never be offered a shot at fixing this mess; there are a hundred things that could be done using custom kernels to address this situation, along with a pile of other power saving benefits possible through root access and it is looking a lot like we will not see access to any of them.
I'm not joking when I say this; if CAT handed a few of these devices to key players on the XDA developer forums and unlocked the bootloader, we would very easily see 5 days of usage out of these brilliant pieces of hardware. I have seen it done before.
One of my previous android devices was an Xperia Z3 compact. It was a pretty handy little unit out of the box and would give me a couple of days just like the S60, but with a much smaller battery.
Sony offered an official channel to unlock the bootloader in exchange for your warranty. Within a few weeks the development community turned those devices into tiny pocket rockets with absolutely unbelievable staying power. I was regularly seeing 4.5 days with my normal usage patterns, and that was with WIFI turned on at home! During battery testing, it wasn't unheard of for me to leave the house, do a full day at work and get home with only 5% of the battery gone.
In my eyes, this should be the standard, not some ill-gotten anomaly that we have to use an exploit to hack around and jam between the system and user partitions, or wait 3 years for.
Of course, the Z3C was too fragile, else I would still be using it today; if you zipped up your pants too fast the rear glass would crack.
The S60 is a superior device to everything I have owned before in so many ways, it is ideal for my work and for my lifestyle but it is being seriously held back by the attitude of Cat Phones/ Bullitt Group towards the intended openness of the android environment.
Their in-house software engineers have failed to address the shortcomings of the android 6 platform, and yet they refuse to let the community at large help them to unleash the potential of what they have created.
This is the path of fear. It is the path of cowardice and worst of all, it is the path of least resistance for them as a company.
They could easily make the choice to step up and take the place of nexus devices as they wither and die. Become a true icon with this freak of a phone but instead they will more than likely keep their bootloaders, and their battery potential to themselves in the grim hopes that by keeping the whole thing locked down they will secure a few corporate contracts which demand encryption and zero ability to play with the device.
Good luck to them, they created a hell of a piece of hardware, but it could have been so much more.
For me, I will forever feel like I am leasing this phone from their company even though I bought it outright.
Every time I look at the battery percentage it is like running my tongue over a cut in the roof of my mouth; sure the battery life is still good, but why are you not trying to make it as good as it can be?
We as customers took a lot of sacrifices in specs and size, and still paid the price of a premium flagship; should we not expect the device to reach its potential? At the very least, do something about this wifi issue and google play services getting locked in perpetual consumption...perhaps it is fixed in nougat?
All the best everyone, I'll be out in the rain taking photos of frogs and mushrooms.
slimbobaggins
Well-Known Member
Bandario I think you should file a warranty claim on your phone.
I might get the occasional wakelock but my wifi problems are virtually gone, as are the wakelocks. When I get a wakelock, its usually caused by a new app that I have installed.
I get 2-3 days on a single charge... that is easily with 3-5 hrs of screen on time, and some combination of 4-6 hours combined talking or streaming audio, as well as plenty of sms. I have a 2 hour commute each day and if I'm not talking on the phone via bluetooth, I'm listening to a podcast... I dont use my car stereo hardly at all.
For all intents and purposes I am a power user compared to you, but we're getting equal battery life. Something isn't right with your phone.
When I plugged my phone in last night to charge, I had 14% battery life left. I'd had over 5 hours of talk time on it, at least an hour of streaming audio, I'd played a little Super Nintendo on it, and camera and FLIR usage at work. As well as messing around on the fantasy football app.
This is all without running Greenify. I've been considering installing Greenify, now that I have a solid baseline, to see what the results are.
I might get the occasional wakelock but my wifi problems are virtually gone, as are the wakelocks. When I get a wakelock, its usually caused by a new app that I have installed.
I get 2-3 days on a single charge... that is easily with 3-5 hrs of screen on time, and some combination of 4-6 hours combined talking or streaming audio, as well as plenty of sms. I have a 2 hour commute each day and if I'm not talking on the phone via bluetooth, I'm listening to a podcast... I dont use my car stereo hardly at all.
For all intents and purposes I am a power user compared to you, but we're getting equal battery life. Something isn't right with your phone.
When I plugged my phone in last night to charge, I had 14% battery life left. I'd had over 5 hours of talk time on it, at least an hour of streaming audio, I'd played a little Super Nintendo on it, and camera and FLIR usage at work. As well as messing around on the fantasy football app.
This is all without running Greenify. I've been considering installing Greenify, now that I have a solid baseline, to see what the results are.
slimbobaggins
Well-Known Member
My usage has been fairly light (for me) this morning. 27 minutes talk time via bluetooth, checking email and now posting here, all via LTE. No wifi usage. Phone has been off the charger for 3.5 hrs. Battery has dropped from 100% to 97%.
slimbobaggins
Well-Known Member
So I finally managed to get another wifi lock today.
My coworker and I were headed somewhere for lunch, and instead of my usual process of turning on location services, searching for what I need in maps, etc... I used voice commands to search for the restaurant and when the pop-up asked for location permission etc, I just blindly okayed it.
The wifi has been locked on ever since then, and is murdering my battery.
I checked, and found that the wifi scanning had been re-enabled. Shut that off, and no improvement. Still locked. I deleted the app data for Maps, no improvement.
As I'm typing this, I just though about Chrome, figuring the voice stuff search must go through Chrome. I just "disabled" the app, which of course reverted it to the preinstalled version. While I was at it, I checked permissions, and sure enough, location was enabled in Chrome. So I shut that off as well.
So... I'll give it a half hour or so, and I'll check again to see if the wifi lock is broken now.
I started with 53% battery life at 6:30am this morning, and I'm down to 19% now, which is exceptionally high usage. Hopefully shutting off the location in Chrome solved the problem, and I can re-enable it without getting wifi locked again.
I love how when you search on these wifi problems with Marshmallow, there's all kinds of articles telling you that you're stupid for worrying about it, because it doesn't use "that much" battery life. What bullshit. People are so conditioned to living their life tethering their wireless phone to a charger, they've become sheep. They might as well have a corded phone again.
My coworker and I were headed somewhere for lunch, and instead of my usual process of turning on location services, searching for what I need in maps, etc... I used voice commands to search for the restaurant and when the pop-up asked for location permission etc, I just blindly okayed it.
The wifi has been locked on ever since then, and is murdering my battery.
I checked, and found that the wifi scanning had been re-enabled. Shut that off, and no improvement. Still locked. I deleted the app data for Maps, no improvement.
As I'm typing this, I just though about Chrome, figuring the voice stuff search must go through Chrome. I just "disabled" the app, which of course reverted it to the preinstalled version. While I was at it, I checked permissions, and sure enough, location was enabled in Chrome. So I shut that off as well.
So... I'll give it a half hour or so, and I'll check again to see if the wifi lock is broken now.
I started with 53% battery life at 6:30am this morning, and I'm down to 19% now, which is exceptionally high usage. Hopefully shutting off the location in Chrome solved the problem, and I can re-enable it without getting wifi locked again.
I love how when you search on these wifi problems with Marshmallow, there's all kinds of articles telling you that you're stupid for worrying about it, because it doesn't use "that much" battery life. What bullshit. People are so conditioned to living their life tethering their wireless phone to a charger, they've become sheep. They might as well have a corded phone again.
slimbobaggins
Well-Known Member
That didn't work, so I went into permissions and revoked location for everything except the app that controls the thermostat in my house, and when that didn't work, I uninstalled/ disabled the Google app, Google now launcher, and google play services, which of course rendered my phone virtually useless and blew away all my settings. I just put my Google account back in the phone, and subsequently went into the google play app permissions and disabled all of those.
We'll see what happens with this go around. Hopefully I'm not stuck in the Bandario purgatory.
I had no problems since the OS update, until I accidentally let the voice automated stuff molest my phone about 6 hours ago... and have consumed like 30% of the battery since then.
We'll see what happens with this go around. Hopefully I'm not stuck in the Bandario purgatory.
I had no problems since the OS update, until I accidentally let the voice automated stuff molest my phone about 6 hours ago... and have consumed like 30% of the battery since then.
I have got google voice assist bound to single press of my function button, which does from time to time go off in my pocket. I wonder if this could account for all of my location and wifi stuff constantly turning itself back on?
I think my original point still stands; you can get everything locked down the way it should be, but normal usage regularly undoes all of your configuration and leaves you with wifi / location/ play services eating battery. It is annoying.
I think my original point still stands; you can get everything locked down the way it should be, but normal usage regularly undoes all of your configuration and leaves you with wifi / location/ play services eating battery. It is annoying.
slimbobaggins
Well-Known Member
Okay everything I did in the above post seems to have broken the wifi lock.
I'm not a habitual voice command/ location services user, so I guess that's how I have avoided this experience.
This wouldn't be an issue, if the "Wifi off" switch actually meant OFF. Dumbest "feature" of Marshmallow. I spend 90% of my day in an area where I don't want my phone connecting to the wifi network, so there's no reason that I should be forced to accept the wifi radio eating my battery needlessly.
I'm not a habitual voice command/ location services user, so I guess that's how I have avoided this experience.
This wouldn't be an issue, if the "Wifi off" switch actually meant OFF. Dumbest "feature" of Marshmallow. I spend 90% of my day in an area where I don't want my phone connecting to the wifi network, so there's no reason that I should be forced to accept the wifi radio eating my battery needlessly.
This sounds like a good possibility as I have the wifi lock constantly also but I use google play services so much (android wear watch, and alot of other google services) for me to disable things is not why I buy a phone. The issue was fixed in MM fairly quickly, Cat just didn't pull from the correct device/build tree and should of went to the newest version of MM before releasing the phone especially since Nougat is out.
I can't test any of you findings right now Slimbo as I need a new device but maybe if they send me a new one it will not have these issues? Hopefully its seals will work also... Or I may just sell it as I am pretty upset with CAT right now :/
LostDreamer
Lurker
Went ahead and registered here because of this issue and the fact that Natalie has joined this conversation.
I've been keeping tabs on this topic for a while now, and tried a lot of stuff to get better battery life out of a device with twice the battery power my old phone had.
While keeping wifi completely turned off, disabling location scanning (device / gps only) and some other stuff, I get reasonable battery life but WiFi is still draining.
Just today I found this issue which might explain some things:
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=197460
"The battery drain when connected to 5ghz wifi is huge on the Nexus 6P. The issue is present both on Android 6.0 and 6.0.1. I've tried three different Routers and the issue was present on all of them."
In a lot of android versions where the hardware is able to use both 2.4 and 5ghz wifi they seem to have included a setting where you can disable either of them.
@Natalie From CAT Phones: Would it be possible to give the ability to disable the 5Ghz WiFi mode?
For now I'm trying to find a program or some way to turn Wifi N off
I've been keeping tabs on this topic for a while now, and tried a lot of stuff to get better battery life out of a device with twice the battery power my old phone had.
While keeping wifi completely turned off, disabling location scanning (device / gps only) and some other stuff, I get reasonable battery life but WiFi is still draining.
Just today I found this issue which might explain some things:
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=197460
"The battery drain when connected to 5ghz wifi is huge on the Nexus 6P. The issue is present both on Android 6.0 and 6.0.1. I've tried three different Routers and the issue was present on all of them."
In a lot of android versions where the hardware is able to use both 2.4 and 5ghz wifi they seem to have included a setting where you can disable either of them.
@Natalie From CAT Phones: Would it be possible to give the ability to disable the 5Ghz WiFi mode?
For now I'm trying to find a program or some way to turn Wifi N off
slimbobaggins
Well-Known Member
I could be wrong but I didn't think our phones even supported 5GHz? Or maybe that's just my version. I have 5GHz wifi at home and have never seen the 5GHz network.
Correct, it does not.
Cat S60 6.0.1 owner in Detroit on Cricket. Having battery drain issues with Android OS and WiFi using up a lot of battery as well (Even with WiFi off and disabled in the location services).
Booted into safe mode (power off, power on, then hold volume down until phone powers on) and now I've gone an hour and a half and haven't dropped a percentage in battery yet (after taking a five minute call and taking a few pictures on the standard camera too). If 2 hours gives me 1% standby usage, I should get 4+ days which is what I expect, but am not getting.
I've noticed that Google Maps keeps asking to use WiFi for improved location accuracy (Why?!?!?!?!) so that is my current suspect, though I will be looking into wakelock issues to narrow it down. This is really annoying.
Booted into safe mode (power off, power on, then hold volume down until phone powers on) and now I've gone an hour and a half and haven't dropped a percentage in battery yet (after taking a five minute call and taking a few pictures on the standard camera too). If 2 hours gives me 1% standby usage, I should get 4+ days which is what I expect, but am not getting.
I've noticed that Google Maps keeps asking to use WiFi for improved location accuracy (Why?!?!?!?!) so that is my current suspect, though I will be looking into wakelock issues to narrow it down. This is really annoying.
slimbobaggins
Well-Known Member
You have wifi disabled in location services (as in GPS only?), or you have wifi scanning disabled? Two different things... just want to check to make sure you have the scanning disabled.
I mentioned in Post #51 that I was having issues with everything disabled, and just ended up resetting all preferences, and it took care of it, so it must have been an errant interaction between the OS and an app.
I mentioned in Post #51 that I was having issues with everything disabled, and just ended up resetting all preferences, and it took care of it, so it must have been an errant interaction between the OS and an app.
I bought this cat s60 about one month ago, I found the battery discharged very quickly even on stand by, I have many phones but is one tops the cake in term of shortest running time, ask, what was the solution? I returned to the seller, this cat s60 has and impressive specifications but couldn't live up to what was said re battery life between charges, no not good enough.
Only thing going for it is the thermal camera, the sound on speaker is average, the phone like X6 Runbo can do even better as far as battery" long time" between charges, fingerprint actions and good sound. I have two Runbo X5 and Q5. M4Xperia Sony.
We all know battery time during operation is one of the most important and they should have got this fix before selling.
Ninjakebab
Newbie
A lot of stuff has happened in here, wow.
For cavell, bandario, apf and Peteleu, I would recommend Limiting Background Data for Google Play Services (can be done through "Data Usage" or "Apps" list in settings). That might prevent constant pinging of the WiFi and positioning requests, even though they are turned off. I barely remember all the steps that I've done, but I never see wifi locks on my Cat anymore. Im averaging 3 days on a 80-20% drain - I try to keep it in this range.
Also I would recommend disabling background data for Play Store, Maps, Google app and whatever other apps you suspect are being little bitches. Doing it for the Play Store does require manually updating every once in a while from the Store, but this is just 2 clicks anyway.
Also, after each update, delete the entire internal Cache.
The biggest factor that helped my battery was limiting the network to 3G only, as anything above is much too fast anyway to utilize (IMO), and spends a lot more power: "Data usage" -> settings button (top right) -> "Mobile network" -> "Preferred network type"
For cavell, bandario, apf and Peteleu, I would recommend Limiting Background Data for Google Play Services (can be done through "Data Usage" or "Apps" list in settings). That might prevent constant pinging of the WiFi and positioning requests, even though they are turned off. I barely remember all the steps that I've done, but I never see wifi locks on my Cat anymore. Im averaging 3 days on a 80-20% drain - I try to keep it in this range.
Also I would recommend disabling background data for Play Store, Maps, Google app and whatever other apps you suspect are being little bitches. Doing it for the Play Store does require manually updating every once in a while from the Store, but this is just 2 clicks anyway.
Also, after each update, delete the entire internal Cache.
The biggest factor that helped my battery was limiting the network to 3G only, as anything above is much too fast anyway to utilize (IMO), and spends a lot more power: "Data usage" -> settings button (top right) -> "Mobile network" -> "Preferred network type"
Although I do agree that these are definitely good ways to save battery, I do not agree with having to do them. I spend $600 to use a phone as is, hell my Pixel last twice as long as the S60 with half the battery size.
Being a software developer I understand the importance of optimization, and if every other OEM can optimize 6.0.1 to remove battery drain then Cat can do it also.
Thank you for the tips and I am sure they will help someone else, but IMO they should not have to be done.
Still the limitations are of the cheap phone category since users have to nurse and stop certain functions to conserve battery power, question is would one buy such a phone if the CAT tell it like it is? also to turn on Window one has to press the side switch! Which is of the old fashion kind, the switch is designed to allow"X" number of pressing times by the way, it is mechanical spring type, should be operated by fingerprint recognition.
Am sure other smartphone makers will come up with this thermal camera, Cat is the first with this novelty ,the thermal cam. but not the best because of the short battery operation turn around cycle requiring charging, well, maybe the next model will be better, I was disappointed by these issues , maybe by others too.