I Found & Fixed an HTC Incredible Battery Bug

[RogerThat99]

Since my factory settings hard reset today I have not killed any processes and my phone is sleeping fine. I have added my Exchange account and I'm seeing Google and Exchange calendars with no impact on sleep. I added the Friendstream widget and opened Friendstream adding Twitter, Facebook for HTC and Flickr... no more sleep. After more testing the prime suspect is Facebook for HTC. It seems I can use regular Facebook but it does not appear in the Settings account and sync list like the one for HTC. It's confusing to have both offered to you as well. I was restarting in between changes and the Facebook account was a repeatable killer of sleep.

Read that again... FACEBOOK FOR HTC appears to be the battery killer for me

BTW, I just got a system message about a pending HTC update as well.

I did a factory reset, DID NOT reload FB for HTC Sense, added the power control widget to my home screen (which I use often) and added Advanced Task Killer (which I use very frequently). I believe the FB for HTC Sense was the main culprit. My phone is now sleeping. Uptime 32 hours and Awake time 5 hours, with moderate use. Before these changes, my phone was dead in 6-7 hours with low use. Now with Moderate use I have about 50% of my battery after 14-16 hours. I am still getting my gmail pushed to the HTC email app and have my sync intervals set to the most frequent setting.

 

[howarmat]

facebook for HTC set for 30 minute refresh and i got 25 hours yesterday. doubt it was facebook causing the problem

 

[shred444]

I did a factory reset, DID NOT reload FB for HTC Sense, added the power control widget to my home screen (which I use often) and added Advanced Task Killer (which I use very frequently). I believe the FB for HTC Sense was the main culprit. My phone is now sleeping. Uptime 32 hours and Awake time 5 hours, with moderate use. Before these changes, my phone was dead in 6-7 hours with low use. Now with Moderate use I have about 50% of my battery after 14-16 hours. I am still getting my gmail pushed to the HTC email app and have my sync intervals set to the most frequent setting.

I had these exact same symptoms, and they all went away when i did what you did. I completely blame facebook. In fact, when i sync facebook for htc sense now, i will cause the phone to stop sleeping again. It disappears if i remove the facebook for htc sense

 

[sitrucz]

For me it was Good for Enterprise. I'm testing offline mode within the application right now so I don't have to kill the process.

 

[hctagalong]

The suggestion to alter the HTC Flickr sync worked for me. I unchecked both Flickr Sync Stream & Sync Contacts from within Accounts & Sync, reboot (soft -- didn't pull the battery), waited for a few hours and observed that the Uptime vs. Awake time was finally different. Then, I checked Sync Stream, reboot (soft), and waited for a few hours again. Uptime vs. Awake time still different.

I've left my Incredible like this for the weekend. Granted, I didn't use the phone much (a few calls, a few texts, searched around the market, etc.) and left it off the charger just to see how long it would last. When I finally plugged it in, I had less than 5% left but the Uptime was at 64hrs! That beats the heck out of the approximate 12 to 14hrs. I was getting previously... Thanks for the tip!

Can any tell me what those two Flickr Account Sync options actually do? I've been looking around and haven't come across any documentation. Specifically, I'm wondering about Sync Stream & Sync Contacts. Mostly curious about what I'm giving up with my current config.

Thank you!

 

[roninld]

The suggestion to alter the HTC Flickr sync worked for me. I unchecked both Flickr Sync Stream & Sync Contacts from within Accounts & Sync, reboot (soft -- didn't pull the battery), waited for a few hours and observed that the Uptime vs. Awake time was finally different. Then, I checked Sync Stream, reboot (soft), and waited for a few hours again. Uptime vs. Awake time still different.

I've left my Incredible like this for the weekend. Granted, I didn't use the phone much (a few calls, a few texts, searched around the market, etc.) and left it off the charger just to see how long it would last. When I finally plugged it in, I had less than 5% left but the Uptime was at 64hrs! That beats the heck out of the approximate 12 to 14hrs. I was getting previously... Thanks for the tip!

Can any tell me what those two Flickr Account Sync options actually do? I've been looking around and haven't come across any documentation. Specifically, I'm wondering about Sync Stream & Sync Contacts. Mostly curious about what I'm giving up with my current config.

Thank you!

Good to hear that this worked for you. I am getting 2 days battery life now after removing Flickr, and I have everything turned on: GPS, location, always on data connection and so on.

As far as I understand it, those are for updating contact info with what they are doing in Flickr. So if they upload some images, the profile will indicate the activity.

 

[hctagalong]

As far as I understand it, those are for updating contact info with what they are doing in Flickr. So if they upload some images, the profile will indicate the activity.

Thanks! Are you saying that Sync Stream controls sync updates to my contacts' photo stream (based upon the interval I've selected - 1x per day) when they upload an image I have rights to view? Then, Sync Contact is when they update their profile information?

With my current config (Sync Stream 'on', Sync Contact 'off'), it will be interesting to see what happens in relation to this bug when one of my contacts posts a new image. Will the phone go into power sucking mode again? Time will tell.

 

[hctagalong]

Update: Okay, I give up... After a while of good behavior with the Sync Stream 'on' and Sync Contacts 'off', seems that the battery drain has all of a sudden started again . I've turned both off (as suggested in previous posts), soft-reboot, and now it's happy again.

I've submitted the symptoms to HTC. While I doubt anything will come of it, I suppose that more problem reports can't hurt.

 

[dak244]

Question: Does the phone stay "awake", meaning the Awake Time counter is on, always while plugged in to a computer?

I just had mine plugged in for a while and noticed this.


Thanks.

 

[roninld]

Update: Okay, I give up... After a while of good behavior with the Sync Stream 'on' and Sync Contacts 'off', seems that the battery drain has all of a sudden started again . I've turned both off (as suggested in previous posts), soft-reboot, and now it's happy again.

I've submitted the symptoms to HTC. While I doubt anything will come of it, I suppose that more problem reports can't hurt.

I think Flickr is the problem. Try not having Flickr sync at all.

Try removing Flickr and doing a soft reset again. Some users have had success adding Flickr back but not syncing anything. The syncing process seems to be the problem. At least that's I got from reading the Desire forum that marabuchi posted last page (#126)

I was going to mention to not sync Flickr at all, but seemed to be working for you.

As for Sync Stream, I think that deals with the FriendStream app from HTC, and Sync Contact deals with updating contact info.

 

[hctagalong]

roninId --> Thank you for the information. I believe you're correct in that Flickr is the problem. From some testing of my own, what you've mentioned is what I've observed: Sync Stream is for Friend Stream and Sync Contact is for updating linked Contacts. Shoot... Flickr is all I really was interested in (vs. Facebook) for social apps. Oh well, maybe a fix will come someday.

dak244 --> Don't know about connecting up to a machine (I don't have a need to). The observation is that Uptime and Awaketime are the same; said another way, the device doesn't go to sleep.

I've played around with it a little more (yeah, I know that I said I was giving up, darn OCD kicking in ). I've found [for the problem I'm seeing] that deactivating both options, soft reboot, then activating one will work for some period of time (until some 'magic' happens, then let the battery drain begin). YMMV...

 

[hctagalong]

Some users have had success adding Flickr back but not syncing anything. The syncing process seems to be the problem.

A curious question; if Flickr isn't set to sync anything, than what would be the value of having the accout setup on the device? Manual sync from the Photos app, maybe? The unfortunate thing is that without the Sync Contacts, it doesn't appear that you can link a selected contact to their Flickr account. Maybe I'm missing something?

 

[roninld]

A curious question; if Flickr isn't set to sync anything, than what would be the value of having the accout setup on the device? Manual sync from the Photos app, maybe? The unfortunate thing is that without the Sync Contacts, it doesn't appear that you can link a selected contact to their Flickr account. Maybe I'm missing something?

If you have Flickr setup on your phone, you should be able to link. Go to the contact and either touch the link icon in the upper right corner of the screen next to the name, or hit Menu->Link. The next screen should have Flickr and whatever else you have setup. You'll probably have to search manually through your Flickr contacts though.

 

[sitrucz]

An update on Good Enterprise it's designed to prevent the phone from sleeping. I've gotten around it by using TasKiller and open it when I need it.

 

[slinky317]

This morning, my up/awake time were 1:1 and it was driving me nuts. I force closed the calendar and it didn't do anything. Eventually I went nuts and shut every process down and it stopped. Not exactly know what I shut down and how that would effect it, I restarted the phone. When it booted back up, I went in and force closed the calendar, only this time it worked and my up-to-awake ratio is about 3:1 which is about normal for me.

Is there an app available that will shut down any process running that's stopping the phone from going to sleep? I know you can do it with TaskPanel manually, but unfortunately sometimes you don't know WHICH app is causing it so you can't help. If there was an app that could run when you hit the sleep button, would scan the process to see if it was holding sleep up, and then shut it down if it was, that would be awesome.

 

[slinky317]

just so you all realize, if your awake time is not the same as up time and the phone is going to sleep, you will also not be getting email, weather updates maybe and other data processes. you will get calls and sms though. the emails when come in instantly when you wake the phone up though

I'm not sure if this has been addressed, but that is incorrect. My phone is asleep currently however I'm still getting all new emails.

 

[heavi5ide]

Just wanted to add my name to the list... I unset Flickr syncing several hours ago and rebooted the phone (just powered off and back on; didn't remove the battery) and now I've got uptime 5+ hours, awake time 10 minutes. Over the last few days I had noticed the uptime and awake time had been matching 1:1 and came back to look at these threads again (had checked them out briefly before but everything was fine on my phone at that time). Anyway, thanks to everyone for posting here and for the link to the xda Desire thread. Really helpful stuff and now my battery is draining much more slowly!

 

[jprow507]

This morning, my up/awake time were 1:1 and it was driving me nuts. I force closed the calendar and it didn't do anything. Eventually I went nuts and shut every process down and it stopped. Not exactly know what I shut down and how that would effect it, I restarted the phone. When it booted back up, I went in and force closed the calendar, only this time it worked and my up-to-awake ratio is about 3:1 which is about normal for me.

Is there an app available that will shut down any process running that's stopping the phone from going to sleep? I know you can do it with TaskPanel manually, but unfortunately sometimes you don't know WHICH app is causing it so you can't help. If there was an app that could run when you hit the sleep button, would scan the process to see if it was holding sleep up, and then shut it down if it was, that would be awesome.

That would be nice. This is SO FRUSTRATING! At first I was having uptime=awake time and it appeared to be due to Flickr because I removed that and was able to get a ratio something like 5up:1awake without much phone use.

Then it came back. I found out the culprit was the "Screen On" app that I haven't even used yet. I uninstalled it and rebooted the phone and was back to a great Uptime:Sleep ratio.

Now its happening AGAIN!!! I haven't installed anything besides a few games which don't run (I ensured they are killed by Task Killer). Last I looked I was getting something like 30hours up: 20hours awake and I haven't really used my phone all day. I then used Task Manager or whatever it is called and pretty much EVERY service had been running for the 20hour awake time so I can't find a single one to uninstall or disable.

This is my ONE gripe with this phone of how sh*tty the sleep/awake process monitoring is! Other than that great phone!

 

[quannumkid]

Just to throw my recent experience into the fold:

I too noticed that my battery was draining quickly, even with minimal use throughout the day I couldn't get anything over 12-14 hours of battery life. Up time and Awake time were most always 1:1. I backed up everything and did a factory reset. I added my Google, Facebook and Twitter accounts and set them up to sync, but this time I chose not to add my rarely used Flickr account info. Since this my battery life has improved greatly and last I looked my up time was 2+ hours and my awake time was 17 minutes, so far so good. Looks like the Flickr account was sabotaging my battery, glad I didn't use it anyways.

 

[manbearpig10]

This worked for me...my battery went from 4 hours of usage to over 12 hours! Huge thanks... I used the Flickr and Calender kill suggestions.

 

[mhamann]

So, I killed the Flickr account about a week and a half ago, and things have been significantly better, but as a couple others have mentioned, the phone will start to stay permanently awake again. I'll generally end up with an uptime and awake time about 10 hours apart and they stay like that.

I notice that this happens only after plugging the phone in to charge it. And it doesn't start "permawaking" every time, but often it does.

The workaround for this is to reboot the phone after unplugging it from the charger. So, I charge it every night and then reboot in the morning. Doing that gives me exceptional battery life.

I really want to find the root cause though as I feel like these things should rarely ever need rebooting.

Anyone else confirm or know what's causing this?

 

[jprow507]

So, I killed the Flickr account about a week and a half ago, and things have been significantly better, but as a couple others have mentioned, the phone will start to stay permanently awake again. I'll generally end up with an uptime and awake time about 10 hours apart and they stay like that.

I notice that this happens only after plugging the phone in to charge it. And it doesn't start "permawaking" every time, but often it does.

The workaround for this is to reboot the phone after unplugging it from the charger. So, I charge it every night and then reboot in the morning. Doing that gives me exceptional battery life.

I really want to find the root cause though as I feel like these things should rarely ever need rebooting.

Anyone else confirm or know what's causing this?

This seems to be what I notice as well .... rebooting the phone after charging gives me significant better battery life...

 

[AaronBBrown]

So, I killed the Flickr account about a week and a half ago, and things have been significantly better, but as a couple others have mentioned, the phone will start to stay permanently awake again. I'll generally end up with an uptime and awake time about 10 hours apart and they stay like that.

I notice that this happens only after plugging the phone in to charge it. And it doesn't start "permawaking" every time, but often it does.

The workaround for this is to reboot the phone after unplugging it from the charger. So, I charge it every night and then reboot in the morning. Doing that gives me exceptional battery life.

I really want to find the root cause though as I feel like these things should rarely ever need rebooting.

Anyone else confirm or know what's causing this?

+1 here. But it happens to me about every 8-10 hours regardless of whether I charge or not. I am at the point where, if the phone is sleeping properly, I only lose like 1% per hour. But, if the phone isn't sleeping properly, I lose like 1% every 5 minutes. It's really bad and very frustrating. This time, I can't find the task or app responsible. I wish there was a way to look into the processes and see what is currently preventing the phone from sleeping, but I suspect this is some kind of memory leak.

 

[slinky317]

Exactly, sometimes when I boot the phone up I can quickly find the culprit responsible for the awake time. However, when the phone is charging and then it remains awake, I can't seem to find anything responsible for keeping it awake. A reboot fixes this, but this is annoying and shouldn't have to be done.

 

[roninld]

+1 here. But it happens to me about every 8-10 hours regardless of whether I charge or not. I am at the point where, if the phone is sleeping properly, I only lose like 1% per hour. But, if the phone isn't sleeping properly, I lose like 1% every 5 minutes. It's really bad and very frustrating. This time, I can't find the task or app responsible. I wish there was a way to look into the processes and see what is currently preventing the phone from sleeping, but I suspect this is some kind of memory leak.

I was running into the same issue of the phone not sleeping properly and not knowing what was causing it since the Calendar wasn't an active process. I know this sucks, but try opening up the Calendar app, exiting out of it, then killing the process. That usually worked for me.

At the moment, I am getting 2 days battery after deleting my Flickr account and restarting. Haven't had an issue with Awake/Uptime since 5/10.