Google Services battery issues

[Joe_Perone]

GOOGLE SERVICES.

This is the bane of my existence. It takes up 70-75% of my battery just sitting there, doing nothing! Ever since the play store updated to 4.1.10 from 4.1.6 it's been an issue. And my battery life, something that the Play Store update said would improve, has gone downhill since installing! For instance, I woke up this morning and my phone was at 60% battery; this was at approximately 6:35. One hour later, the phone was at 52%. This is all on standby, there has been no real usage. My data and Wi-Fi are both off, as well as location services and the like, and I'm also not rooted. I don't really know what's going on with this, but there is one common denominator: Google Services. It is still hogging 69-70% of my battery. What's the deal with this?

Thanks for your time guys, I appreciate it

 

[SpookDroid]

Re: Your annoying little friend...

If it started happening after Google Play updates, I'd go to Settings/Application Manager/ALL Find the Google Play app, clear cache (not data as this would cause it to re-populate and would only consume more data at launch). If you can, find the Google Services process (I haven't seen it but I haven't really looked) and also clear cache.

Now, in my experience, these shot up when using Google Now. If after clearing cache for the Play store you still have the same issue, try turning Google Now off. In any case, with Google Now off you will always notice improved battery life, but at least you should see if the Google Services process is still on top or not.

Hope it helps.

 

[Joe_Perone]

Re: Your annoying little friend...

I've never turned on Google Now though, I've never even used it once.

The Google services encompasses many things: Play Store, Network Settings, Google Contacts, and things of that nature. Should I clear cache for all of these things?

 

[SpookDroid]

Re: Your annoying little friend...

Wouldn't hurt. Cache is just a temporary data storage; clearing Data is usually more 'dangerous'. Even if you've never turned Google Now on, check it's not on... for me it enabled itself after an update and it also turned Automatic Location Reporting and Location History (the first one the major battery hog for Google Now) in Google Maps.

I know how cool it sounds in theory, but in practice it's only awesome if you're in the US. In my country, Google Now can only go as far as telling you weather conditions and traffic times to/from Home and Work (although I can't for the life of me figure out why on Earth it always wants to send me home from work at 10AM ??). Not very impressive and not worth the battery drain.

 

[Joe_Perone]

Re: Your annoying little friend...

I just checked to make sure, not on for either of them. Clearing cache seemed to work, at least for now. It seems Google Services really is the culprit! Hopefully 4.3 Jellybean fixes that when it comes out.

 

[breacherman Williams]

Yea man same here, I just installed 4.1.10 yesterday, through a .apk I found online, because the patch was announced may 29th and google play had yet to update for me, as it still was running on v4.1.6.
But I had understood the same as you is that is was suppose to fix that google play services battery drain, and it did nothing for me as well.

It was just as bad before on 4.1.6, did you indicate you didnt have the problem before u updated to 4.1.10?

Either way Ive been tryin to fix this for a couple weeks now, actually had been waiting for that update that didnt fix ****.....but I just cleared cache on google play and google play services as spook suggested, and I'll see what that does for now.
I just dont get why theres no concrete solution to this problem as of now with as many people that seem to be havin the same problem.

 

[breacherman Williams]

ok clearing google play store and google play services cache did nothing, google still sitting at the top of the battery drain list (after charging back to 100% and waiting for awhile)....

 

[Bootlase]

This happened to me too. I tried most things including uninstalling but all to no avail. In the end I did a factory reset and, thus far back to normal.

 

[Ace7772]

having this issue and it is really irritating, If this happened during the AT&T trial period I would have returned the damn thing but I guess I'm stuck for now . I have done pretty much what was suggested from different forums (besides doing factory restore) and none of the "fix" seems to work. It does not happen everyday but at least once a week and It usually happens at night where I would wake up and the battery is only at %10 and google services would eat up the resources for a whole day or so.

One thing that very consistent when this is happening is all my apps gets magically updated to the latest version EVEN THOUGH I setup the Google play to NOT auto-update my apps (setting gets magically changed to auto-update too), I only have a dozen or so apps but it drains the battery really good.

My latest try is now that it's back to normal where the "Screen" is at the top of the list and eating up %80sh of the resources is I just disabled Google Play store from Application Manager > ALL , we'll see if that helps.

Other issues I've notices since having the galaxy s4 for a month (long time iPhone users, this is my 1st Android device)
- Random shutdown: wont power on at all unless I remove the battery.
- I ignored a call and the damn thing won't stop vibrating no matter what I do, removing the battery fixed it.

 

[jeffreii]

having this issue and it is really irritating, If this happened during the AT&T trial period I would have returned the damn thing but I guess I'm stuck for now . I have done pretty much what was suggested from different forums (besides doing factory restore) and none of the "fix" seems to work. It does not happen everyday but at least once a week and It usually happens at night where I would wake up and the battery is only at %10 and google services would eat up the resources for a whole day or so.

One thing that very consistent when this is happening is all my apps gets magically updated to the latest version EVEN THOUGH I setup the Google play to NOT auto-update my apps (setting gets magically changed to auto-update too), I only have a dozen or so apps but it drains the battery really good.

My latest try is now that it's back to normal where the "Screen" is at the top of the list and eating up %80sh of the resources is I just disabled Google Play store from Application Manager > ALL , we'll see if that helps.

Other issues I've notices since having the galaxy s4 for a month (long time iPhone users, this is my 1st Android device)
- Random shutdown: wont power on at all unless I remove the battery.
- I ignored a call and the damn thing won't stop vibrating no matter what I do, removing the battery fixed it.

It sounds like a factory reset would be your best friend. Sometimes you get a quirky install and need to start fresh. If you're having all those issues, it's not normal and you need to bite the bullet and start over.

 

[Ace7772]

It sounds like a factory reset would be your best friend. Sometimes you get a quirky install and need to start fresh. If you're having all those issues, it's not normal and you need to bite the bullet and start over.

that would be my next step if it happens again in the next week, but then again, google-fu those 3 issues on S4 and you will see that its not uncommon and that many S4 users are having the same issue even after factory restore, it seems like an 4.2.2 bug. One thing for sure is I will never recommend S4 to anybody anytime soon. All of my family have iPhones and most of the folks at work have iphones as well.

 

[jeffreii]

that would be my next step if it happens again in the next week, but then again, google-fu those 3 issues on S4 and you will see that its not uncommon and that many S4 users are having the same issue even after factory restore, it seems like an 4.2.2 bug. One thing for sure is I will never recommend S4 to anybody anytime soon. All of my family have iPhones and most of the folks at work have iphones as well.

Ok well I've never had any of those issues even once...so if you want to assume it's just an inherent problem...it's not going to get you anywhere.

We know a lot of people have iPhones...my girlfriend has one and I can't stand how uncustomizable it is. You could complain all day long about ANY phone. Luckily for you, your phone is probably fixable with a factory reset.

 

[jeffreii]

Settings/more/location services <--- disable "use wireless networks". This cut down on the wakelocks from Google Play Services by about 95%...but of course I lost that feature, which I would prefer to have.

 

[Ace7772]

disabled Google Play store since 8/23 and getting amazing battery life (along with disabling other Samsung features) can last more than a 24 hours and battery is still at 30% with average usage of Chrome and emails. Random check on Battery usage shows "Screen" at the top of the list at 36%, I'm sure the issue will come back again once I enabled Google Play but I'll try to restore to factory first.