Motorola Droid MAXX - App Disabling For Maximum Speed & Battery Life

[GMasonDragonDad]

The issue with my Droid Maxx is the draining 1.5%-2% per hour when idle (deep sleep) with everything (that I can think of) turned off.

http://forums.androidcentral.com/moto-x/308529-moto-x-battery-life-14.html

Below is the motorola link spoken about in the MotoX thread.
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If you are experiencing bad idle drain and/or high Android OS usage, please go post in https://forums.motorola.com/posts/afdf80c0dc. I think actual Motorola employees monitor those forums and report issues to engineers.
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I generally enjoy the phone, but am irked about this issue that I have with my phone and that others seem to be having with their Moto X. I have disabled and "force stop" countless apps. I am happy to report that most apps that I found make little difference, but the underlying drain is ongoing. Restarting the phone improves things greatly for a day or two.

Whatever insights folks have.. will be appreciated. Don't mean to rant.. but it does not seem to be just me having the issue.

 

[doogald]

The issue with my Droid Maxx is the draining 1.5%-2% per hour when idle (deep sleep) with everything (that I can think of) turned off.

It really doesn't bother me. I just need the phone to get through an 18 hour day with enough battery in the worst radio conditions.

I'm not going to read through the whole thread you linked. Are you using Google Now? Do you have Google Now set to track locations? Go into Google Now - the easiest way is to slide up from one of the capacitive buttons and put your finger on the circle that says "Google". Scroll to the bottom, and tap the menu control on the bottom right. Tap settings, Privacy & accounts, Google location settings. Turn off Location Reporting and Location History for all Google accounts.

The reason I wonder if Google Now location tracking is the culprit for battery problems is that I see that most of my wakelocks are with NlpWakeLock and NlpCollectorWakeLock, and I think that these processes are Google Maps location services.

I like Google Now, so I haven't turned these off, and my phone tends to 35-50 hours on a full charge, so I'm ok with the battery drain as it exists. But I wonder if turning off these services (if they are on) will help?

 

[adrialk]

Try clearing cache... That brought me down from 1.5%-2% to about 1%/hr idle overnight connected to wifi.

It was the suggestion of level 2 moto tech support. Plus they found that my YouTube app was crashing frequently in the background, so I cleared data and disabled the app. Eventually enabled it again and battery drain remained at 1%.

I think 1% is still high for a phone with a 3500 mah battery.

I also recently enabled Google now and saw a minimal change in idle drain... Maybe 0.1%/hr more.

I do suggest contacting moto tech support for battery drain issues. Once you get to level 2 they are reasonably helpful once you get past the suggestion to FDR.

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk 2

 

[CrazyRussian007]

I have always on: WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, GPS, all location tracking features, Google Now; I stream music for about 2 hours, plus browsing, reading, YouTube... And my phone lasts me from me getting out of bed til I get back into it. And usually the phone has at least 35%

Is that 1% idle discharge per our? 2%? 3%?

I don't give a flying frisbee if it is or not. My 2 cents

Posted via Android Central App

 

[GMasonDragonDad]

I don't know what happened to fix the drain issue. Got the update, cleaned cache.. 46 hours on 21% usage. This is what I paid for!

Sent from Droid Maxx

 

[adrialk]

GMasonDragonDad,

Looks great.
Did you have data enabled the entire time? Do you have Google Now enabled? Location Services? Always Listening? Active Notifications?

Just would like to understand what your configuration was that gave you 0.5 % / hr drain.

thanks,
Adrial

 

[1901Madison]

How do I clean the cache without doing a factory reset?

 

[adrialk]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...ZXfp5HiGpEKSK10-g&sig2=Jy85ZF8yvyWpFsYnwD57pQ
Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk 2

 

[GMasonDragonDad]

I uses App Cache Cleaner to clear cache. I tried recovery mode way but could not figure it out. 4g data connected the entire time. Google now,,location services, and touch less controls were off. Active notify was on. I also changed to Dashclock on home screen. Again.. Not sure what fixed the issue. I just hope it continues this way! 72% at 60 hours. Amazing!



Sent from Droid Maxx

 

[Masheen]

It really doesn't bother me. I just need the phone to get through an 18 hour day with enough battery in the worst radio conditions.

I'm not going to read through the whole thread you linked. Are you using Google Now? Do you have Google Now set to track locations? Go into Google Now - the easiest way is to slide up from one of the capacitive buttons and put your finger on the circle that says "Google". Scroll to the bottom, and tap the menu control on the bottom right. Tap settings, Privacy & accounts, Google location settings. Turn off Location Reporting and Location History for all Google accounts.

The reason I wonder if Google Now location tracking is the culprit for battery problems is that I see that most of my wakelocks are with NlpWakeLock and NlpCollectorWakeLock, and I think that these processes are Google Maps location services.

I like Google Now, so I haven't turned these off, and my phone tends to 35-50 hours on a full charge, so I'm ok with the battery drain as it exists. But I wonder if turning off these services (if they are on) will help?

Most of my drain comes from Android OS as well. With better battery stats most of the Partial Kernel wakelocks come from NLP also. Network Location Provider, I believe. I attribute it to Google Now and keeping my location settings and GPS on at all times. Google now is supposed to have low battery pings for location, but it does seem to be very active.

 

[adrialk]

Why is key ring giving you location wake locks?

I just tried idle overnight connected to wifi with Google now off, location services off, always listening off... 0.7%/hr.

This is still a bit higher than the 0.5%/hr that GMasonDragonDad is getting. Not sure why.

I get 1%/hr with everything on so hardly seems worth it to turn anything off for me.

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Masheen]

Why is key ring giving you location wake locks?

I just tried idle overnight connected to wifi with Google now off, location services off, always listening off... 0.7%/hr.

This is still a bit higher than the 0.5%/hr that GMasonDragonDad is getting. Not sure why.

I get 1%/hr with everything on so hardly seems worth it to turn anything off for me.

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk 2

Good freakin point. I didn't even notice that... Usually regular NLP Collector is the biggest wakelock. I may just switch to Google Wallet and ditch keyring if I can't figure out how to reduce its wakelocks.

 

[adrialk]

I use keyring and it doesn't give me any wakelocks. I have notifications disabled within the app

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Masheen]

I use keyring and it doesn't give me any wakelocks. I have notifications disabled within the app

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk 2

I tried restricting background data through data manager and it's still giving me wakelocks. Going to try disabling notifications, but I've never gotten any noticeable notifications from the app.

 

[BakoDan]

I've had my Droid MAXX for just under a week now. So far, I really like this phone (upgraded from a RAZR MAXX). However, my battery drain has been excessive over the last couple days compared to my colleagues using the Droid MAXX and the stats I've seen in this thread. I'm currently seeing a battery drain rate around 4.5% with realitively light usage (not phone calls, texting, or internet usage). According to the battery usage screen, the screen and Android OS are using the battery the most (about 33% for each). Any idea how I begin to figure out what's causing the excessive drain rate?

 

[adrialk]

BakoDan,

If Screen is at 33% then you are using it a decent amount, not necesserily that light a usage. To see what your idle drain is, it is best to let the phone idle overnight. When idling overnight, do it without wifi connected.
If you see >1% idle drain, then try wiping cache per the link I posted above.

If you still see >1% idle drain after wiping cache, try restricting background data (completely), see if that solves it. If it does, then you can disable background data for individual apps. Look at their respective background usages to figure out which one.

Finally, try idling overnight connected to WiFi (or with data of) to see if poor LTE signal is killing your battery.

If you find nothing, then look for wakelocks, etc.

 

[Masheen]

I've had my Droid MAXX for just under a week now. So far, I really like this phone (upgraded from a RAZR MAXX). However, my battery drain has been excessive over the last couple days compared to my colleagues using the Droid MAXX and the stats I've seen in this thread. I'm currently seeing a battery drain rate around 4.5% with realitively light usage (not phone calls, texting, or internet usage). According to the battery usage screen, the screen and Android OS are using the battery the most (about 33% for each). Any idea how I begin to figure out what's causing the excessive drain rate?

Again, battery drainage is different for every individual. The *Best* way to determine what is leaking your battery is to go here: [APP][2.1+][09 Sept. - V1.14] BetterBatteryStats - xda-developers (This dev is nice enough to post his paid app on this site for free) Install Better Battery Stats, charge your phone to full, use it the way you have been, and you will be able to pull specific data pertaining to battery drain IE: Kernal Wakelocks, Partial Wakelocks (this field being the usual culprit), and you will be able to see which apps specifically are draining your battery and to what extent. Post the screenshots here when you get them and I will help you decipher it. Cheers.

 

[BakoDan]

Again, battery drainage is different for every individual. The *Best* way to determine what is leaking your battery is to go here: [APP][2.1+][09 Sept. - V1.14] BetterBatteryStats - xda-developers (This dev is nice enough to post his paid app on this site for free) Install Better Battery Stats, charge your phone to full, use it the way you have been, and you will be able to pull specific data pertaining to battery drain IE: Kernal Wakelocks, Partial Wakelocks (this field being the usual culprit), and you will be able to see which apps specifically are draining your battery and to what extent. Post the screenshots here when you get them and I will help you decipher it. Cheers.

Thanks for the help! Took me a bit, but I finally figured out how to install the app from the thread (obviously, you're dealing with limited experience on my part). I'll charge my battery up to 100% and post a screenshot after I have used the phone for a while.

 

[GMasonDragonDad]

Five days and still great battery life. I see similar complaints on the Ultra, Mini and Moto X forums. I made several changes at one time so can't verify what the magic bullet was. Clearing cache or the clock widget on my home screen?

I am slowly turning things back on to check drainage. Location services is first.

Sent from Droid Maxx

 

[jimd1050]

Hello Masheen,

In your original Post, in bold text you state "This does NOT require root, and is a perfect solution to those who want to de-bloat and not have to root their phones." I have read it over several times yet when I try to rename the app suffix on my Un-rooted Droid Maxx, it says "Failed" - seems the majority of these files are "Read Only"! How did you do it Un-Rooted? Thank you for your work on this too... always appreciate folks sharing their knowledge.