Why does my Moto X 2014 battery go from 20 to nothing?

Lincoln

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Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

So the last 2 weeks or so I've noticed that the battery life has been getting worse and today it depleted fast so I plugged it in but I had to unplug it soon after to walk to another building and when I got there, I noticed my phone was completely dead, 0% when I tried to boot it.
I reached out to Motorola Support which was more painful than my last dentist visit. The rep told me many things and when I challenged what he said he'd change to a new thing that was the problem. Lastly he told me it's my cache partition and I need to boot my phone using the boot button/volume key and clear the whole cache partition to fix my battery going from 20% to 0% - this makes no sense to me. I asked for it to get escalated.... he won't escalate it. Is clearing the cache partition *really* going to solve a battery going from 20% to 0%?
Also I know I shouldn't complain but it seems like my battery is charging faster than normal, which leads me to believe that there's less there to charge...

Attached screenshots for your viewing pleasure.
unnamed.pngunnamed (1).png
 

Aquila

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Re: Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

That is actually the first step we'd recommend. Secondary questions, do you use any battery managing apps and are you using a stock charger, turbo charger or a third party charger?
 

Lincoln

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Re: Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

No battery apps. I use a stock charger & cable - who wouldn't want to use the included dual USB charger? :)
 

Aquila

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Re: Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

Ok, then I would second the recommendation for a cache clear. The unfortunate part is that the next step, if that fails, is a factory reset. These two things eliminate software as the issue, however cache clearing is much much less invasive.
 

jerethi

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Re: Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

So, is the basic problem that your phone, despite showing a 20% charge, will mysteriously die shortly after that, and report that the battery is depleted?

If that is the issue, I can tell you that I've experienced the same thing from time to time. Most folks have told me that I need to calibrate my battery, but it doesn't seem to "stick". The first time this started happening, I did a factory reset, and that seemed to fix the problem for a time, but it eventually returned. Wiping the cache partition does not seem to solve the issue.

I am using a turbo charger. I have noticed that on at least one occasion, plugging in the charger caused the system to start jumping back and forth between a 100% charge and the actual charge. It was the weirdest thing.

My suspicion is that this is a software issue, but I'm not really sure how to correct it permanently.

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cgardnervt

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Re: Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

Have you tried deleting the cache on the boot partition of the phone?
 

jerethi

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Re: Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

Have you tried deleting the cache on the boot partition of the phone?

You're referring to booting into recovery and wiping the system cache, right? If so, yes, I have done that.

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jerethi

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Re: Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

I charge my device with both the standard AC adapter and the turbo charger. Could that possibly be related to this issue?

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grn4frk

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Re: Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

My 1st Gen and 2nd Gen do this but not as bad. Usually my phone will die at 7% or so. Extremely annoying as I think I have some battery left but then BAM dead as a doornail.

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jerethi

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Re: Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

My 1st Gen and 2nd Gen do this but not as bad. Usually my phone will die at 7% or so. Extremely annoying as I think I have some battery left but then BAM dead as a doornail.

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Interesting. Could this be a software issue?

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benhaube

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Jan 1, 2014
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Re: Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

So the last 2 weeks or so I've noticed that the battery life has been getting worse and today it depleted fast so I plugged it in but I had to unplug it soon after to walk to another building and when I got there, I noticed my phone was completely dead, 0% when I tried to boot it.
I reached out to Motorola Support which was more painful than my last dentist visit. The rep told me many things and when I challenged what he said he'd change to a new thing that was the problem. Lastly he told me it's my cache partition and I need to boot my phone using the boot button/volume key and clear the whole cache partition to fix my battery going from 20% to 0% - this makes no sense to me. I asked for it to get escalated.... he won't escalate it. Is clearing the cache partition *really* going to solve a battery going from 20% to 0%?
Also I know I shouldn't complain but it seems like my battery is charging faster than normal, which leads me to believe that there's less there to charge...

Attached screenshots for your viewing pleasure.
View attachment 168110View attachment 168111

Clearing the cache position actually uses MORE battery because the phone has to rebuild the position with stuff it needs to access frequently. That guy was an [edited by Mod]
 
Last edited by a moderator:

benhaube

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Re: Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

Interesting. Could this be a software issue?

Posted via the Android Central App

I will have the same thing just yesterday it did that at %9. My battery shows as "condition: good". Though I don't know how that is determined.
 

Papadakis

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Re: Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

Mine's been doing something similar on occasion for the past few months. I have battery saver set to kick in at 5%; and more times that not, I'll hear the battery saver noise when it's supposed to kick in at 5%, but then the phone will just shut off.
 

davidnc

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Re: Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

Although I have had pretty good battery life on my Moto X .
I do the cache cleaning ever so often even if I am not having issues.
 

nickname303

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Re: Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

I try not to let my battery get too low, but a few weeks ago it was on 5% and it suddenly died.

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jerethi

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Re: Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

Thanks, everyone, for the posts. They all lead me to believe that this is likely some kind of software issue, since it seems very unlikely it would be a hardware problem for a of us. Unless of course it's a defective design or something!

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rob34222

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Re: Moto X 2014 battery goes from 20% to nothing

my last one had a power button that would stick. i went on line, clicked request repair, and picked power button non functional. i stuck a post it note on the phone with a description of the problem, a polite note about never dropping it or spilling on it, and fedex'd it to moto. No call to moto required.

i made out like a bandit. i didn't hear back after a week. turns out they were out of white/bamboo at&t phones when i called to check on it. the best the guy would offer me was a black base model. i refused and very politely insisted that i would rather pay and upgrade to a pure edition motomaker and under no circumstances would i accept a cheaper model of the phone i loved so much. he came back on the line and told me i'd recieve a code to build one within 24 hours. 23 hours later i received an x-code and a link to build it. i've been using this ever since. much better than the 16gb white/bamboo i had before. 32gb, walnut, blue accents, custom greeting and engraving, and it was FREE.

if they won't escalate it, escalate it yourself like i did.

before doing that, you might try to fully discharging it by getting the battery to 21% and then letting it sit at the fastboot menu until it dies. then fully charge it with the power off, and when it's at 100%, turn it on. see if it's better. it's just an idea i have. i mean that's how you calibrate a laptop battery. might be worth a shot before you end up like my signature.
 
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RoyEP3

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I need help.

I've done everything from battery cycling, battery calibration, flashing stock rom, clearing cache, and wiping everything clean. My phone is still dying at around 25%. Today it actually died at 30%! I can't think of anything else except that it's a hardware problem. The battery indicator should reset after a cache wipe right? and a full stock rom flashing. I need some confirmation that it's a battery issue and not a software issue before I go and buy a new battery.
 

nickname303

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Dec 25, 2014
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I need help.

I've done everything from battery cycling, battery calibration, flashing stock rom, clearing cache, and wiping everything clean. My phone is still dying at around 25%. Today it actually died at 30%! I can't think of anything else except that it's a hardware problem. The battery indicator should reset after a cache wipe right? and a full stock rom flashing. I need some confirmation that it's a battery issue and not a software issue before I go and buy a new battery.

I don't think it's ever been confirmed what the cause of this problem is. I don't generally let my battery get too low, but on the occasions that it reaches 15% I start looking for a charger because I know it could actually die at any moment. It's annoying.

I'm gonna guess it's a software issue. When your phone dies it's because the battery is physically empty and can no longer provide power for the device. So the fact that the phone is still reporting x% battery left is surely just a case of erroneous reading/reporting of the battery's actual level by whatever bit of software is responsible for that?

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