Battery issues and questions

[EvilMonkey]

Ok, my battery started having major drainage issues lately. I never really paid attention to it, so I don't know what's "normal"

I put it on my nightstand fully charged at midnight last night....and it was dead when I woke up at 7:00, so it died in less than 7 hours of apparently doing nothing but sitting there. This has been happening for around a week now, and I haven't really changed anything that I know of....maybe updated a couple of apps, but nothing major.

So then I looked at the battery chart and it's showing it apparently went into "awake" mode all night, killing the battery. Here's a pic:

For reference, I took it off of the charger at around midnight, so the start of the chart should be right then. Then suddenly it goes into Awake mode what looks like a couple of hours later, but I don't know why it would have done that....I was long asleep at that point.

The only odd thing I saw from last night was that Slacker was listed as using 23%, (along with idle, standby, and wifi making up the rest), even though I always exit out of that and it wasn't showing in my notification bar as running like it always does. And I would have exited out of it at 5:00PM when I got home (I only use it in the car)

Any ideas on how to troubleshoot? I run CM7 if that helps.

 

[Citizen Coyote]

I'd start with Slacker. An app sucking 23% of your battery with the screen off is doing something. Uninstall this evening, repeat your actions from last night, and see what the battery looks like tomorrow morning.

 

[TWC_SouthPhilly]

Sounds and looks like it is an app. You said you updated a few apps around the same time you noticed the extra battery drain. Your EVO being awake like that means theirs an app or device running. And as you stated "SlackerRadio" showed it was running. Check the settings in Slacker and see if something changed after the update.

Viewing it!!!

 

[EvilMonkey]

Thanks. I assume it's Slacker for some reason since that was the only app listed as using the battery (outside of "system" and "idle" and "wi-fi").

I'll dig through the settings in a bit to see if there's something there. In the meantime, what would be a better battery-monitoring app that would actually break those stats down a bit more (for example, rather than just telling me the phone was awake, to tell me what app was causing the phone to be awake)?

EDIT: Well, I looked and I see I still have the "Wireless Refresh" setting in Slacker checked, which says it will "refresh your cached stations overnight"....I had used that during the free premium trial, but now that it's over, the free/unsubscribed version of Slacker doesn't let you to cache stations. So I'm guessing for some reason it was still trying to cache the stations overnight. I unchecked the box and will let it sit overnight again and see if that was it.

 

[EvilMonkey]

Dammit. Unchecking that box didn't fix crap. Same thing again (although now I know it killed the battery in about 4.5 hours).

I guess I will uninstall and reinstall and see if it still happens tonight. Maybe I'll make a post over in the apps forum to see if anyone else is seeing similar problems with it.

 

[Citizen Coyote]

Dammit. Unchecking that box didn't fix crap. Same thing again (although now I know it killed the battery in about 4.5 hours).

I guess I will uninstall and reinstall and see if it still happens tonight. Maybe I'll make a post over in the apps forum to see if anyone else is seeing similar problems with it.

Bummer, I thought you had found the culprit in that setting. Let us know what happens with the uninstall solution (if for no other reason than to satisfy my own curiosity!)

 

[EvilMonkey]

Bummer, I thought you had found the culprit in that setting. Let us know what happens with the uninstall solution (if for no other reason than to satisfy my own curiosity!)

Will do. Maybe that setting doesn't "stick" or something. I posted in the Slacker forums as well but didn't hear anything yet.

Anyways, I'm all uninstalled and reinstalled and ready for tonite. Sucks having to wait 24 hours to test it again.

 

[Telperion]

You could always fully charge it and just let it sit for 5 hours, the time of night shouldn't affect whether it's dying or not, it's idle usage.

 

[enfuego44]

Mine did the same thing last night which is kinda funny. Mine only showed that Slacker used like 5% of my battery though. Weird stuff. But my awake usage looked exactly like yours and I woke up to a dead phone.......I'll check to see if the same happens to me. I had no issues all day though. Good luck.

 

[EvilMonkey]

The uninstall/reinstall seemed to fix it for me. Friday night I force-stopped Slacker (just a process that keeps running if you use it) and it didn't kick on. So Saturday night I left it running and same result. Same thing last night.

So it looks like an uninstall/reinstall fixed it for me. I'll post back if it does happen again though.

 

[EvilMonkey]

Correction: It died again on my last night. Slacker used 10% of the battery (it was not fully charged when I went to bed though), and the phone woke up in the middle of the night and stayed awake until it died.

WTF?

I'm going to try again tonight I guess....try to remember to FC Slacker before I go to bed to see if it makes a difference since it appeared to before.

I also posted the same question/issue in the Slacker forums but it's being ignored. Apparently not a common issue, I guess.

Anyways, this is the stuff I've tested so far:

• If I reboot then do NOT use Slacker all day, the issue doesn't show up.
• If I use Slacker during the day and just exit the app (Menu -> Exit) it does kill the battery overnight.
• Force-Closing Slacker prior to bed seems to fix the issue (killing whatever processes are currently open from it).
• Uninstalling it fixes the issue
• Re-installing causes the issue to come back.

For now, I'm just going to try to remember to FC Slacker before bed. I really hate to go without it.

 

[Citizen Coyote]

Hmm. Seems obvious that it's Slacker causing your phone to wake up. I know you posted on their forums, but have you tried contacting the devs directly via email? You probably won't get a response, but maybe it's something they can look into for a future version.

In the meantime, do you have Slacker installed to SD? If so, do you have space to move it to the phone? Don't know if that would make a difference, just brainstorming. Maybe clear the cache? Especially if you have it on SD card, that would not have been touched when you uninstalled/reinstalled the app.

 

[saleen2002]

if i look at battery useage. my awake bar is solid blue. how do i find out whats makin it stay awake ?

 

[Citizen Coyote]

if i look at battery useage. my awake bar is solid blue. how do i find out whats makin it stay awake ?

If you need a baseline, charge your phone to full, reboot it, then let it sit. If it's waking up without your interaction, check the apps percentage. Under battery use it will show what apps/functions are using what percentage of the total used power. That should give you a starting point as it did the OP (in this case, Slacker was using 29% yet it was at night when he wasn't using the app).

 

[DirkBelig]

In the past couple of days, my EVO has gone berserk, too, guzzling the battery dry in less than half the time it normally would. Checking battery usage before, I was seeing Pandora using power despite not being used at all and the phone rebooted. I have no widgets for Pandora or even a home screen shortcut, so it's not being pocket activated. I uninstalled it since I rarely listen in the car.

The killer was last night when I went to a movie screening. They were confiscating cell phones on the way in and they put a fully charged phone, less than 10 minutes off the car charger into the envelope. I reclaimed it less than two hours later and it was warm to the touch and the battery was at about 50% after less than two hours! I went to the store afterwards and I could feel it warm in my pocket and by the time I got it back on the car charger it was down to 8% after about 3-1/2 hours. This is in a good coverage area.

I shut off the Live Wallpaper (that clouds thing that was featured here a few days ago) and charged it up and cleared the battery stats and after two hours of just being on standby here at work, it's down to 50%. My building is brutal for signal due to the construction, so life isn't great normally, but I can get 5-6 hours with moderate use; what's happening now is unprecedented.

Checking what's eating the battery, it shows:

Display - 52% (time on 10 mins. Auto-brightness)
Dialer - 19% (keep awake 1m 21s; I had one wrong number call come in that I rejected)
Wifi - 11%
Cell standby - 8% (Time on matches time on battery; time w/o signal 22%; I said work sucks for coverage)

Any ideas what's causing this wicked fast drain?

 

[lswartz33]

I was having some issues as well and had not been able to find out what was using my battery until I discovered this app - BetterBatteryStats. It adds in the battery info we lost in the GB update (process and waklelocks since certain events) and will show you what has been waking up your device and how long it has been running. Give that a try and see if it helps you identify the issue.

BetterBatteryStats on xda
Tune Your Android’s Battery Life With BetterBatteryStats

 

[Citizen Coyote]

In the past couple of days, my EVO has gone berserk, too, guzzling the battery dry in less than half the time it normally would. Checking battery usage before, I was seeing Pandora using power despite not being used at all and the phone rebooted. I have no widgets for Pandora or even a home screen shortcut, so it's not being pocket activated. I uninstalled it since I rarely listen in the car.

The killer was last night when I went to a movie screening. They were confiscating cell phones on the way in and they put a fully charged phone, less than 10 minutes off the car charger into the envelope. I reclaimed it less than two hours later and it was warm to the touch and the battery was at about 50% after less than two hours! I went to the store afterwards and I could feel it warm in my pocket and by the time I got it back on the car charger it was down to 8% after about 3-1/2 hours. This is in a good coverage area.

I shut off the Live Wallpaper (that clouds thing that was featured here a few days ago) and charged it up and cleared the battery stats and after two hours of just being on standby here at work, it's down to 50%. My building is brutal for signal due to the construction, so life isn't great normally, but I can get 5-6 hours with moderate use; what's happening now is unprecedented.

Checking what's eating the battery, it shows:

Display - 52% (time on 10 mins. Auto-brightness)
Dialer - 19% (keep awake 1m 21s; I had one wrong number call come in that I rejected)
Wifi - 11%
Cell standby - 8% (Time on matches time on battery; time w/o signal 22%; I said work sucks for coverage)

Any ideas what's causing this wicked fast drain?

My first guess would be a battery going bad. If two hours is draining your battery to half and half of that is the display being on for ten minutes, there's something seriously wrong with the battery's capacity. The time without signal will drain some as roaming or searching sucks down far more than Sprint's network connection does, but by your stats that's only 8% of power used.

I'd take it in to a Sprint center and see if they can test the battery. If you're wary about taking a rooted phone in, you can also try buying a second battery and see what happens.

 

[DirkBelig]

I was having some issues as well and had not been able to find out what was using my battery until I discovered this app - BetterBatteryStats. It adds in the battery info we lost in the GB update (process and waklelocks since certain events) and will show you what has been waking up your device and how long it has been running. Give that a try and see if it helps you identify the issue.

BetterBatteryStats on xda
Tune Your Android?s Battery Life With BetterBatteryStats

OK, I downloaded and installed this tonight. What should I be looking for; how do I interpret what it's reporting?

Here's what happened to me tonight:

* Take fully charged phone off car charger at about 6:40 pm

* While waiting for movie to start at 7 pm, DLed BetterBatteryStats and installed it.

* Movie ends at 8:40 pm, phone is at 55% battery and warm.

* The g/f and I hop to another theater for a double-feature and I start looking through the BBS readings, trying to find what may be causing problems. The only suspicious thing is that the Handcent pop-up notifier (IIRC) had been running every second it was off the charger. I received one text during the movie. I shut off pop-up notifications.

* Second movie finishes about 11 pm. I pull my phone out of my pocket and it's dead and warm. Don't know when it kicked, but it was within 4 hours.

Attached is the screenshot of it's burning out. Any ideas. This is extremely worrisome and annoying. The heat indicates something is running, but what? Thanks.

 

[lswartz33]

If you open the app and choose Wakelocks from the drop down it will show you what has been keeping your device awake and for how long. Here's an example of what mine looks like. The only thing that has kept mine awake ( for 1m 41s ) since I took it off the charge was the Market updates I performed.

 

[DirkBelig]

OK, took fully charged phone off at 10:12 am. It's 11:16 am now and after 64 minutes, battery is at 76%

Wakelocks - Since Unplugged:

* *sync* (Gmail) - 1m 27s
* StartingPopupUtilsService (Handcent - thought I turned this off) - 1m 1s
* Craigslist Notifier - 47s
* com.htc.sync.provider.weather.POWER_LOCK - 44s
* K-9 Mail - 38s
* *sync* (Google Reader) - 33s
* AlarmManager (system) - 30s

Other - Since Unplugged:

* Wifi and Bluetooth - 100% of the time
* Awake 21m - Ratio 31.3%
* Screen On - 13m 45s - Ratio 20.3% (I haven't been using it that long! Perhaps less than 2 minutes total.)