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Help (VZW) Sudden, Mega Battery Drain - Due To Ghost Dial, PRL Update?

Dankees

Dankees

Android Enthusiast
I have noticed that the battery in my Galaxy Nexus has been dying a lot faster than it had been three days ago. :(

I had a great battery-life with JuiceDefender Ultimate (hovering around x2.00). :)

My phone had been randomly shutting down (and it has been happening more lately).

Two days ago, it shutdown twice. Upon restarting, it dialed *22899 – and I don’t believe it fully completed its objective. My PRL number updated to 52686 (my wife’s phone shows 15098).

I added that phone number (*22899) as a contact and I manually dialed that number and let it does its thing. I restarted, and it still dialed the number again.

Then, I restarted again (several times), and it hasn’t happened since.

I have noticed that my phone seems to be a bit warmer than it had been before, and my JuiceDefender Ultimate (which showed my battery as being at around x2.00, sometimes lower, sometimes higher) is now around x1.70. I am running on Auto Brightness as well.

I just tested my phone. I didn’t touch it for exactly one hour. My battery life went from 76% to 68%. How can that be? It lost 8% in a hour when I didn’t even turn on the screen (and it should be syncing with a Data Connection every 5 minutes). :mad: I haven’t changed these settings in a while. (After my troubles began, I changed it back to the 15 minute interval.)

I attribute my battery drain to the random restarting, and to the ghost dialing of *22899

I took out my battery and replaced it. I don't know if the battery pull is the cause, but my PRL reverted back to 15109 (my wife's says, 15198 - I believe).

Anyway, I just restarted my phone, and for the first time in two days it dialed the *22899 upon restarting. Music played, and a woman came on saying that I should continue to wait while my phone was being programmed. (I don't have a great connection where I am.) The process ran for just over a minute and then disconnected. The woman only spoke that one time.

Is there something wrong with my phone, now? I am going crazy from this. Please help me. :(

Notice below (in the third screenshot) that my Wi-Fi does show some blue, as does my 3G connection, however, the dot next to Wi-Fi is red in JuiceDefender Ultimate. I don't believe that it was red before. :confused:

I really don't want to have to do a Factory Reset, because I'll have to basically remember which applications I have, and from where I got them, plus, I will have to go back and totally set-up my phone again, and - the worst part of all - there's no guarantee that this won't just happen again the following day, anyway.

While I was typing this, I restarted a second time and the phone dialed *22899 - following both times, the PRL Version reads: None :confused:

I just restarted three times. Each time, the *22899 was dialed. After a few seconds, it just hung up. The second and the third time, I was standing outside, and I definitely had service.
Somebody please help me with my month-old phone! :(

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Dan
 
First thing that comes to mind is taking the phone to the carrier. It sounds like an issue they'll have to fix. Second thing that comes to mind is a factory reset although I don't think that will work here if it's a network issue.
 
Carrier can replace it if it's having problems talking to their network. If you do a reset, I would reset everything to factory defaults wiping out all user data. Backup before you do this of course.
 
Will it back up my screen set-up or will I have to re-arrange everything? I have already had it replaced once and I don't want to have to do that because this PRL (or whatever) can end up happening again.
 
OK, so I totally reset my phone. Not just a data reset, but a full factory reset. I did this Saturday morning. I spent Saturday and a lot of yesterday reorganizing my stuff and setting things back up in my individual applications. My battery was back to being great, operating at around x1.90. I had also restarted my phone a couple of times each day and it never ghost dialed the *22899 number.

This morning, when I turned on my phone, it did the ghost dial, and just as before, after about 12 seconds, it just disconnected. Since then, I have found that my battery isn't operating as optimally as it had been yesterday.

Please help.
 
I've never heard of *22899. Is this different that dialing *228, waiting for the options menus then selecting option 2? This is what I dial to do any PRL updating.
 
As much of a pain it is to do it, you should factory reset once again. This time do not re-set up all of your apps. If anything, just the bare essentials. It could be that you have a malicious app that is trying to do this.

Either that, or list all of your downloaded apps (In settings > Applications > Manage Applications) and we can pick them apart. An anti malware app may also help in the discovery of the culprit app (I'd recommend avast, it seems to be the best) then read this so you're better informed on android malware: http://androidforums.com/android-ap...explained-security-tips-avoiding-malware.html
 
So, I called Verizon, and they said that there are known issues with this *22899 thing with JuiceDefender.

I basically told him that it didn’t make sense for a few reasons:

1.) My wife, mother, and step-father all have the same phone, with JuiceDefender Ultimate running.

2.) I had the application for like 3 or more weeks with no issues.

3.) He said that it turns off Wi-Fi and data, and upon reconnecting, it cannot find a data connection, so it calls that number. That doesn’t make sense, because it doesn’t happen every time, nor did it happen for weeks and weeks.

4.) Also, it dials *22899, but it never actually completes the activation process.

5.) And, the biggest reason of all – even after it dials *22899 (and doesn’t complete the process), it still seems to have a data connection (even though it didn’t really do anything with regard to activation), and after only a short period, the battery still dies at a majorly rapid pace (even though it is no longer looking for a data connection).

Am I wrong in my thinking?

So, I have removed JuiceDefender to see if the phone still dials *22899, and I will see if the battery still dies quickly.

I may have to factory reset the phone once again (as recommended) – I just don’t think that an application that I was running for weeks (along with millions of other people) with no issues is the culprit.


Dan
 
If you disagree with Verizon, the only thing you can do then is do a factory reset and leave Juice Defender off for a while. If your phone does the same thing then you can use this when calling Verizon back.
 
First, I will run it without JuiceDefender and see what happens. If it still keeps dialing that number, that makes no sense at all. Plus, I just ran the phone for two days with it, without any problems. After the factory reset, the PRL Version was already 52686.
 
Now, this morning, when I turned my phone on, it dialed the *22899 number. As soon as that happened, my battery started tanking. It lost like 15% in only 30 minutes of usage (and more without any usage).

So, I decided to turn off JuiceDefender Ultimate. My battery improved right away. So, I started to think on why this was happening and what I can do about it. (I’m still really pissed off that this doesn’t happen on my wife’s phone.) Since it has been enabled, I have turned my phone on and off twice and it didn’t call the *22899 number. Could it be that it isn’t calling that number now because it only syncs up with a data connection location every 24 hours (like the Verizon dude told me over the phone, yesterday)?

Oh yeah, and this morning, the phone showed a battery life of 48%. I turned the phone off, and I turned it right back on (plugged in), and the battery instantly showed it being at 70%. How is that possible?

So, I thought that it might have something to do with the application, “Setting Profiles” because I have it turn my Wi-Fi on and off at certain times of the day. I disabled that. I’m hoping that’s the reason (although, I’ve had that running for just as long, if not longer, than I’ve had JuiceDefender Ultimate running). Is it possible that the “Setting Profiles” application turning Wi-Fi on and off is the culprit? However, “Setting Profiles” doesn’t turn the Data connection on and off, so it might not be that. What do you think?

If it isn’t the “Setting Profiles” application, I’m wondering if a solution might be to actually turn off JuiceDefender Ultimate before I shut my phone down at night and re-enable it each morning. Do you think that would work?
 
Well, after an hour with the screen off, and Juice Defender running, the battery life went from 100% to 92%. I have now turned JuiceDefender off and I will see how the battery fairs. This makes no sense.

Anyone?
 
OK, I will uninstall it now, and see what happens in the morning.

I already uninstalled it yesterday, the battery was fine, so I put it back on.

Why can't I use this application like my wife does, and like I used to? This is so weird.
 
Dankees said:
OK, I will uninstall it now, and see what happens in the morning.

I already uninstalled it yesterday, the battery was fine, so I put it back on.

Why can't I use this application like my wife does, and like I used to? This is so weird.
Click to expand...

You may want to email the developer on this. Explain to the everything you have done so far. Maybe they can shed some light onto this situation.
 
Well, the good news is that it ain't JuiceDefender because it ain't even in the phone. But, the battery is just dropping like a rock - about 1% every two minutes. It has already dropped like 10%. So, that's off. And, if I restart it'll probably stop draining like that, but it shouldn't be this way. I think I'm gonna have to call Verizon. This is just crazy!
 
OK, I was thinking that the following might be a solution – what do you think?

1.) Do a battery pull (with the phone on).
2.) Do a full, factory reset (not a data reset).
3.) After the phone completely restarts, add a contact for “Verizon” with the number: *22899
4.) Manually dial that contact from the contact list.
5.) Let the phone completely activate.
6.) Pull the battery again.

Does anyone think that this will stop the phone from automatically dialing *22899 and keep the PRL stuck at 52686?

I can tell you that I did a full, factory reset over the weekend. After it restarted, I went to my settings and found that the PRL was already updated to 52686 (and it’s been that way ever since). Last week, after it updated to 52686, there was a time when it had reverted back to 15109, and then it went back to 52686 on its own.

Anyway, is this worth trying? I really don’t want to have to do a full, factory reset again. Although, it may be worth a shot before I just go get another one from Best Buy.

I just don’t want to have to go through the chance of getting a phone with vertical banding, and I have to talk them into putting on a replacement ZAGG screen protector.
 
Why do you keep resisting taking it to VZW? It seems pretty clear from all the testing you've done that the problem is with the handset.
 
A.Nonymous said:
Why do you keep resisting taking it to VZW? It seems pretty clear from all the testing you've done that the problem is with the handset.
Click to expand...

I agree. VZW claimed it was a known issue with Juice Defender. You removed the app and the problem returned. Sounds like VZW should be contacted again to get a replacement.
 
Well, as I had told the Verizon representative on the phone this morning - I don't want to just get a new phone, because, it's possible that after all that trouble to getting a new phone, etc., the same thing could just happen all over again, and I'd rather figure out a way that it can be fixed, in case it happens in the new phone. I mean, if I got a new phone, I'd do the same things in that one as I do in this one.
 
Here are a couple of other ideas...

The representative at Best Buy said that it might be Go Launcher EX. She said it manipulates every part of your phone, so that could be doing something. Could that be? I uninstalled it. I will see if that helps. If it doesn't ghost dial tomorrow, I will put it back and see if it calls the next morning.

She also said that it might be a good idea to leave the phone on all night (which I don't want to do) and maybe that will keep its data connected.

What do you think?
 
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