Why is my Galaxy S4 wifi draining the battery while the wifi is off?

This has happened a couple of times now. My Galaxy S4 battery was draining fairly quickly so I turned off all radios. The phone continued to drain even more quickly, became hot, and even though WiFi is turned off, the battery usage monitor shows that WiFi is active the whole time.

My battery went from 50% to the phone shutting itself down in about 2.5 hours after turning the radios off...normally that would make it last about 8 hours.

Welcome to Android Central! Strange behavior. I'd suggest starting with a cache partition wipe: Reset: Samsung Galaxy S 4 | T-Mobile Support

Thanks Diddy. That didn't work though. WiFi is showing that it's turned off on all menus, but the battery meter continues to show WiFi activity. Note that it also shows WiFi was active while the phone was turned off...which is ridiculously weird.

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Hmm. A factory reset might have to be on the horizon.

What happens if you turn on Airplane Mode, and keep it that way for an hour or so? Does the wi-fi still show that it's on during that period?

Airplane mode worked...not a clue what's going on here.

Ok, now what happens if you turn off Airplane Mode? Does the wi-fi show that it comes back on?

The heat makes it sound more like a defective battery or a defective wifi radio, depending on where the heat is coming from. If you turn on airplane mode, no radio should be using any battery. (Since "off" on the battery graph is 1 pixel wide at most, you may not see the black part of the line on the Wifi line - "off" may be less than a pixel wide.) The black line, if it's about at the point you turned the phone off, is about right, but if the phone was turned on and the battery momentarily dropped to 0, it's a defective battery. (If you regularly drain the battery all the way, it could be defective - you only get about 300-500 cycles doing that. (And if you discharge it all the way every day, 300 cycles is less than a year.)

Diddy: After disabling Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi will continue to show that it's off but it does show battery usage.
Rukbat: My battery normally only goes down to about 30-40% each day. I can't use it at work so it's normally turned off for 8 hours/day and I just use it in the evening. On weekends it sucks though because I'm not getting that much out of it.

Do you guys think I should reformat myself or take it to Verizon first?

Where do you see it still using battery? If it's a percentage in the battery stats, remember that that figure is a percentage over that whole battery charge period. It won't go down to zero right away after turning on Airplane Mode.

It's the battery history page...same as the screenshot above.

In the battery history screen, if the wi-fi is off, how do you know it's the wi-fi that's contributing to battery drainage? Any number of other things could be causing further drain. Or are you saying that the wi-fi bar on the battery history screen still shows it's on, even though it's off?

Sorry, should have made it more clear...the Wi-Fi bar on the battery history screen still shows it's on.

I started having the same battery drain issues over the last few weeks. I also had the back of my phone feel like a freshly toasted hot pocket. I basically searched the internet far & wide for possible solutions. Here is a listing of things I've done...
1. Enabled PowerSaving mode
2. Cancelled sync on my Google account in settings/accounts
3. Location is left on but in "Power Saving" mode
4. Turned off automatic updates on Google Play
5. Downloaded GSam Battery app to monitor usage

I've no been able to get over 20 hours without charge. I use moderately during the day for instagram/facebook/texting/youtube
Seems a lot of peeps are having battery issues all of a sudden and no one answer does it for everyone.
I think the Location services aspect is a big part of it.

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Originally Posted by Kal-EL230

I've no been able to get over 20 hours without charge.

That could be, I generally have location on...still doesn't explain the Wi-Fi craziness.

Settings -> wifi -> menu (lower left button) -> Advanced -> Scanning always available -> uncheck.

Beats me why this is checked by default as it severely impacts battery life. I prefer a phone that works all the time over one that knows exactly where it died.

Thanks Ivan. I'll see if that helps at all. It still drains a lot when it's powered off...normally about 15-20% throughout the work day unless it's cold in which case it's as much as 60% battery drain (again, powered off).