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Help Slowly Decreasing Battery Life

B

Barats

Android Enthusiast
I updated to 4.1.2 about 3 weeks ago or so. Not sure exactly. And the battery seemed to be just fine then. But slowly over these weeks, especially the last 4 days or so, it seems to be decreasing. I used to be able to go a whole day easy. And still have 45-50% left. And that would continue into the next day. Sometimes I would get 2 whole days and sitll have about 15% and then decide to charge it back.

Now, I can barely get a full day. And when I don't charge the phone at night, the battery charge decreases quite rapidly. Sometimes 15% or so with no usage at all overnight. It used to maybe move 3% at the most overnight with no usage.

My settings are the same. My usage is the same. I'm not seeing anything weird in the battery stats. I see time without signal is 2%. Nothing extremely high there.

Is this just one of the downside of 4.1.2 or is there something else happening that I'm not picking up on?

I didn't want this to really turn into what apps are out there to make the life better because I hate jumping through all those hoops and settings to get the most. I know this phone has the potential for 2 days of moderate use out the box because that is what I used to get. Seeing if I could get back to that state.

Thanks.
 
Thanks! Had no idea about this setting. Hopefully this does the trick.

I may need to check out more of these videos, too.
 
Ok this did not do the trick. Charged it last night. Took it off the charger at 97%. Woke up this morning and it was down to 83%. With me not using it for one second. About a 5 and a half our time window.

Here's a screenshot of the usage. Slacker is what strikes me odd. I haven't used Slacker in about 3 weeks or so. Have no idea why it's being used like that. I don't know if that is the sole culprit, though.

8iYBiNz.png
 
Lucidmike has lots of good vids, I've been slowly going through all of them.

Are you using Google Now? That might be a reason for maps to be so high.
Check Latitude (Maps/Location sharing) and make sure it's off in settings.
Do you have a weather widget running? They check your location to determine what weather report to get. Increase the time between updates. In fact, I believe any app that uses location data can be causing maps to show even when unused because they call the maps api to get location data.

Sorry, I can't say anything about slacker since I have never used it.
 
TheOtherBill said:
Lucidmike has lots of good vids, I've been slowly going through all of them.

Are you using Google Now? That might be a reason for maps to be so high.
Check Latitude (Maps/Location sharing) and make sure it's off in settings.
Do you have a weather widget running? They check your location to determine what weather report to get. Increase the time between updates. In fact, I believe any app that uses location data can be causing maps to show even when unused because they call the maps api to get location data.

Sorry, I can't say anything about slacker since I have never used it.
Click to expand...

What exactly is Google Now? I doubt I am using it but you never know.
Where exactly do I find the Latitude settings at?
I do have a weather thing running. With Beautiful Widgets. Their clock/weather widget. Shows the time, date and weather. I have the setting to refresh the weather on wake. Nothing to be done while sleeping.

And what are some common apps that will make Maps run? Because Maps will be running no matter what. Even if you kill it manually, it starts again right away.

But even after all that being said, I did not have to mess with these settings before to get good battery life.
 
Barats said:
But even after all that being said, I did not have to mess with these settings before to get good battery life.
Click to expand...
You never know what the update may have started or changed.

Look under Location in the setting for Maps, make sure all that is off.
If you don't know what Google Now is, you're probably not using it :)
 
Ok... I think you are dealing with the dreaded Google Now battery hog.

GN loves to know exactly where you are, so it is constantly accessing the 'Google Location Services' on your phone.. GLS uses your network connection, WiFi and Mobile, to determine your location, and uses it to provide weather conditions, local traffic, events near by, etc.. it's REALLY slick. But it does not let your phone go to sleep.

Go into your settings and go into Location Services Turn off ' Google Location Services'. Look into disabling Latitude if it's on too. I bet you you'll see an improvement.
 
I would ditch Slacker. I don't see why it should eat up 16% of your battery if you haven't used it in 3 weeks. :confused:
 
I checked out Google Now. It is off. So not using that.

I also believe that box for Google Location Services has been unchecked this whole time. I only check that when using Navigation because it won't let me use it without that and GPS being enabled. I remember this setting being a problem for my Evo and draining that battery.

Now what exactly is Latitude and how do I know if that is off or not? I can't seem to find it anywhere on my phone.

And as of late, Slacker does not show up at all in the usage settings for the battery. Maybe that was just a one time thing. We use Slacker at our softball games through bluetooth to give us music in the dugout.

I mean the battery just now slowly drains with no usage at all. I can put my phone down for about an hour and come back and it's dropped by 5%. It drops by about 20% or so overnight. Not liking that at all. This battery life used to be the best I have ever experienced and I never had to worry about it. And this was straight out the box. No tinkering with settings like I am trying to do now.
 
Barats said:
Now what exactly is Latitude and how do I know if that is off or not? I can't seem to find it anywhere on my phone.
Click to expand...

Open Google Maps > menu > Location Settings. That will bring up Latitude. Mine is not enabled and it has "Share location with family or friends" at the bottom. If you tap on that it will ask you to agree & continue or cancel.
 
Ok I checked and it is not on.

I'm beginning to believe the update to 4.1.2 screwed my battery life.
 
Is there anyways to roll back to 4.1.1 without being rooted?

The last time this happened to me, was when I was rooted with the Evo. It would never hold a steady charge. Come to find out, the radio was not compatible with the rom. After I fixed that, it was good to go. Did something screwy go wrong in this update to cause a big battery drainage that should not be happening?

I've been reading around and this seems to be a big issue with 4.1.2 update. And no one really seems to know why or have any solutions.
 
My battery life goes down in front of my eyes.... I got avg antivirus and it tells me when my battery reaches 30%... but then if im doing something on my phone it goes to 29% in matter of a minute or two...then 28%... if my phone is at about 30%-40% overnight there is a huge chance I will wake up to a dead phone or one that tells me to plug in the charger. It never used to be like this...but since the update its outright ridiculous...
Today I had an 80% charge when I left my house and it was 18% 4hrs later.
When I check whats eating my battery nothing seems suspicious...

What can I do to fix this ... or can I fix this? I charge my phone now twice a day. :(
 
How are you checking, just what the Battery section in Settings gives you?
Try something like GSAM and see what that tells you after a day. Also check the youtube link I posted on the first page of this thread.
Did this start when you installed AVG?
 
Have any of you tried a factory reset to see if that solved the issue? I know it's a PITA, but it may fix the issue. Sometimes there's a software/driver conflict due to old residual files causing odd behaviour.

I'll post this screenshot I made today. I did NOT use my Note 2 on 4.1.2 during this period. I'm with Telus (Canada). I'm actually impressed with its battery life as I expected it to be a little worse.

 
miss_vickies said:
My battery life goes down in front of my eyes.... I got avg antivirus and it tells me when my battery reaches 30%... but then if im doing something on my phone it goes to 29% in matter of a minute or two...then 28%... if my phone is at about 30%-40% overnight there is a huge chance I will wake up to a dead phone or one that tells me to plug in the charger. It never used to be like this...but since the update its outright ridiculous...
Today I had an 80% charge when I left my house and it was 18% 4hrs later.
When I check whats eating my battery nothing seems suspicious...

What can I do to fix this ... or can I fix this? I charge my phone now twice a day. :(
Click to expand...

This is basically my problem. I have went to bed with my phone at or around 30-35%. Wake up in the morning with absolutely not even touching the phone and it's in the red at 5% or below. That is ridiculous to me. It used to never be like this at all and I am using my phone and the same apps and same settings as I was before the OTA update. I have yet to find a solution. I've tried everything for the most part.
 
Have you tried a factory reset? The issue may lie with rogue system files from the previous version that is affecting the system in general. Also try removing any monitoring apps or widgets and do a soft reset. See if that clears it. Again, a factory reset may be required and reverting back to a previous version may wipe data as well, so no way around it.

You can check this thread:
http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-note-2/687561-4-1-2-updated-battery-drain.html
 
TheOtherBill said:
How are you checking, just what the Battery section in Settings gives you?
Try something like GSAM and see what that tells you after a day. Also check the youtube link I posted on the first page of this thread.
Did this start when you installed AVG?
Click to expand...

I downloaded avg because it started...thinking maybe some virus is affecting me...and I did find and remove aome files and apps...but sproblem still persists... its the worst when I am out and the phone dies and I am no where close to a charger... I will try gsam thank u
 
An hr later im at 70%... so thats not normal, right? I don't wanna do factory reset again... this is making me dislike this phone so much. Ive seen the video thats linked in this thread and nothing changed... im now at 60%... I had to leave my desk for 10mins since I started typing this. Helppppp :(((((((((
 
miss_vickies said:
An hr later im at 70%... so thats not normal, right? I don't wanna do factory reset again... this is making me dislike this phone so much. Ive seen the video thats linked in this thread and nothing changed... im now at 60%... I had to leave my desk for 10mins since I started typing this. Helppppp :(((((((((
Click to expand...

Have you tried restarting in safe mode ie without any third party apps installed? The method of entering safe mode is detailed pretty well in post #7 by Whitecollar at

http://androidforums.com/samsung-ga...-2-shuts-off-have-remove-battery-restart.html

It seems a good approach to divide the problem in two - either

(a) the hardware, firmware and bloatware etc

Or (b) the third party apps
 
NeoGrandizer said:
Have you tried a factory reset? The issue may lie with rogue system files from the previous version that is affecting the system in general. Also try removing any monitoring apps or widgets and do a soft reset. See if that clears it. Again, a factory reset may be required and reverting back to a previous version may wipe data as well, so no way around it.

You can check this thread:
http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-note-2/687561-4-1-2-updated-battery-drain.html
Click to expand...

No I have not tried this, as this would be something that would definitely be a last resort. I have my phone exactly how I like and it's a big PITA to do a factory reset and then restore everything back to normal.

If it comes down to that, maybe I will but I just saw a person already say they have did one and it did nothing. So I will hold off on that for awhile.
 
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