Help Xperia Z3 battery indicator issues

[RobbytheRobot]

When I upgraded to a Sony M2 from the Xperia E last year, I was absolutely delighted. After a great year with the M2, it got dropped and the case cracked, so I decided to get a new phone. I was tempted to get another M2 as I was so happy with it, but in the end went for a Z3 because the prices had come down quite a lot, and it looked a much more powerful phone.

I have to say I'm a little disappointed so far. The 128GB SD card capacity is great, camera is great, but I've had a lot of teething problems (such as when I first got it, updating the software again and again and again because it kept prompting me to, when in fact it was just installing the same thing over and over again).

Now I seem to have an issue with the battery indicator and not sure if this is a fault or a feature.

It happened a few days after I got the phone, I was stuck on 94% despite using the phone for half a day, and had to restart. No problems since then, but today it just suddenly stopped on 55% and I noticed because I was using the phone a lot with screen on, and battery level wasn't moving. Both the native battery indicator and GSAM report exactly the same, both stop at the same time.

It's kind of important to me to know whether my phone has 55% left, or 10% and at the moment I have no real idea, because it can go for 2 hours and the battery indicator doesn't change, for all I know i could be sailing dangerously close to zero.

On both occasions, when I've rebooted, the percentage has come back exactly as it was when I rebooted, and then started dropping at a normal rate - so the actual percentage doesn't seem correct, as it was stuck on 55% for 2 hours of screen use, then rebooted, and was apparently then still 55% full and only now is it starting to drop - but it could have lost 30-40% in the time it wasn't dropping.

Could this be a faulty battery or is it a problem others have had? OS is android 5.1.1 - maybe it needs Marshmallow to sort this nonsense out? Not sure if it's android itself or a Z3 issue?

Thanks for any input anyone has!

 

[Slug]

Sounds like a software issue, tbh.

If you have a laptop/PC, install Sony's PC Companion software, do a full backup with that, then open Support Zone and use the Software Update/Repair... option. Iirc this shouldn't wipe user data, but a prior backup is always a good idea just in case.

 

[RobbytheRobot]

Thanks slug, I backed up the basics (most of media is on SD card) and then went to the repair option, but it did say it was going to wipe everything that's in internal storage and I got the message that it would take 30 minutes to download the update over an average internet connection, I have 20 Mpbs at home but recall it did take something like that when I first tried to repair the phone (within 24 hours of getting it) so I can't imagine what it's downloading as I can download full length HD movies in half that time, and I'm currently on holiday and my place here has only about a quarter of my home speed... As it's getting late here it looks like too much of a pain to start messing with now.

I just don't know how it's managed to go so wrong less than 2 weeks out of the box that it needs repairing.

As I am on holiday I will wait until a bored couple of hours comes up and try it then, as it looks like it could take quite some time and guess I will also have the pleasure of reinstalling dozens of apps as well.

Speaking of apps, are there any that would monitor the battery in a different way to GSam and the native monitor, so that if the issue happens again I could see some different data which might reveal more?