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Samsung Galaxy S4 battery life problems
- Thread starter djmo121
- Start date
Hi,
I have been having a similar problem that started occurring in the last week, gradually getting worse and worse with the S4.
I would be using the phone, having quite a lot of battery left, then suddenly the phone shuts down and goes into a boot loop. When I plugin to charge it will come out of the boot loop and start. Sometimes it will say 1% charging, other times it jumped to 40% charged.
It is getting quite annoying as times I will be out and unable to use the phone to make calls etc...
I have reset the phone to factory, I have re-flashed the firmware with Kies. I have turned quite alot of features off, etc...
I did one time noticed something flash up very quickly on screen before it shutdown about a service or something unexpectedly stopped. Don't know if this has anything to do with it. Is there anyway of an app to grab these errors?
Is this coming down to maybe Samsung supplying faulty batteries that die after a few months, or a software update?
Has anyone confirmed the problem corrects itself with a new battery?
Here is a screenshot of my battery history of when the problem occurred.
I have been having a similar problem that started occurring in the last week, gradually getting worse and worse with the S4.
I would be using the phone, having quite a lot of battery left, then suddenly the phone shuts down and goes into a boot loop. When I plugin to charge it will come out of the boot loop and start. Sometimes it will say 1% charging, other times it jumped to 40% charged.
It is getting quite annoying as times I will be out and unable to use the phone to make calls etc...
I have reset the phone to factory, I have re-flashed the firmware with Kies. I have turned quite alot of features off, etc...
I did one time noticed something flash up very quickly on screen before it shutdown about a service or something unexpectedly stopped. Don't know if this has anything to do with it. Is there anyway of an app to grab these errors?
Is this coming down to maybe Samsung supplying faulty batteries that die after a few months, or a software update?
Has anyone confirmed the problem corrects itself with a new battery?
Here is a screenshot of my battery history of when the problem occurred.
I'm going to get a replacement battery and see if that fixes anything
Posted via Android Central App
Posted via Android Central App
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You, bashar_odh, are a prince among men! I just did this and found that a whole crap load of my apps were running. Thanks for sharing this tip!
I've had my s4 since late June and had been pretty impressed with the battery life until the last week or so. I work in a phone shop and have seen small but increasing numbers of people come in with battery/charging issues, including one that had swollen, and one that had become so hot on charge that it had melted the screen protector on it.
I have been monitoring my battery life, wakelocks, etc. and every time I think I've tracked down a rogue app/process or other culprit, something else kicks in and causes me concern. I've done the usual - disabling unused apps, uninstalling maps updates... but just can't pin down a software cause.
My battery graph has shown a few increases when it hasn't been on charge and my experience tells me that's usually water damage or a failing battery. I'm thinking the battery feels slightly swollen but would need to compare it to a known healthy one to be sure.
I'm pretty annoyed tbh, as I was really impressed originally and have recommended samsung products to customers, and if I keep seeing more of this I'm going to seriously regret that.
I have been monitoring my battery life, wakelocks, etc. and every time I think I've tracked down a rogue app/process or other culprit, something else kicks in and causes me concern. I've done the usual - disabling unused apps, uninstalling maps updates... but just can't pin down a software cause.
My battery graph has shown a few increases when it hasn't been on charge and my experience tells me that's usually water damage or a failing battery. I'm thinking the battery feels slightly swollen but would need to compare it to a known healthy one to be sure.
I'm pretty annoyed tbh, as I was really impressed originally and have recommended samsung products to customers, and if I keep seeing more of this I'm going to seriously regret that.
I have been using S4 since its launch in India. Since a few days the battery has started draining out like crazy. Before I used to be left with 30% battery with average use of the phone. I installed gsam battery monitor pro . I am still not able to figure out what is draining the battery. Attaching the screen shot of the battery usage.
I have the GT-I9500 Galaxy S4 and I too am seeing battery life is not that great. This of course comes as no surprise to me as it seems every single Samsung phone I have used has had battery issues. I think its not necessarily hardware related but entirely software related.
Sent from my GT-I9500 using AC Forums mobile app
Sent from my GT-I9500 using AC Forums mobile app
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I'm not sure how all of us here think about battery usage.
I see some of you getting about 15 hours and I feel envy.
I normally get around 9 hours with heavy usage on 4G LTE all of those nine hours.
And when I go to places with hardly any signal and still use my Galaxy S4 heavily, I only get around five to six hours!
Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away!
I see some of you getting about 15 hours and I feel envy.
I normally get around 9 hours with heavy usage on 4G LTE all of those nine hours.
And when I go to places with hardly any signal and still use my Galaxy S4 heavily, I only get around five to six hours!
Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away!
If your in a area with very weak signal, your phone's radios are going to be continuously searching for a signal which is a HUGE battery drain. My S4 isnt one that supports LTE (its a GT-I9500) so I dont understand when only using 3G and HSPA+ how it could still have battery life issues. (LTE is a battery drain if you didnt already know). Thats why im convinced its software related and I hope that when samsung pushes out 4.3 to the phone that battery life will improve.
Sent from my GT-I9500 using AC Forums mobile app
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Oh I'm aware of that, and I know what I'm getting right now it's actually good compared to other phones on the same areas.
I'm just trying to figure out if some people here are having really poor battery life or are just whining for no reason.
Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away!
I have a difrent problem, disabled powersave completely, but at 30% it still uses powersave, if lower than 30% and i turn things on and recharge phone it turns things off again at 30%.
Using latest update "4.3" samsung galaxy s4
Using latest update "4.3" samsung galaxy s4
Last edited:
my samsung s4 i9500 its not save charing
i want to ask why and what is problem in my phone?
and how to solve it?
i want to ask why and what is problem in my phone?
and how to solve it?
I was super reluctant to do a factory reset. After ready this post and the advice here I ended up doing it.
I came back to say that the reset totally did the trick. (I don't normally frequent this forum, I just found it through a google search.) The info here helped and was much appreciated.
My phone would previously have been on the charger already. I sit still above 60% at 4:30pm. It was formerly dropping into the teens by now. Just make sure you don't get impatient and back up the phone prior to the reset. I almost lost one phone number. Yeah just one, and I did say "almost lost".
I came back to say that the reset totally did the trick. (I don't normally frequent this forum, I just found it through a google search.) The info here helped and was much appreciated.
My phone would previously have been on the charger already. I sit still above 60% at 4:30pm. It was formerly dropping into the teens by now. Just make sure you don't get impatient and back up the phone prior to the reset. I almost lost one phone number. Yeah just one, and I did say "almost lost".
My galaxy S4 battery life is atrocious. It was 100% charged this morning. I haven't used it all day. It is now 15.54pm and the battery is only 24%. I have taken off ALL the apps I can and it is on battery saving mode but it makes no difference at all. It's the only phone I've ever had where I have taken to carrying a spare battery around with me and I don't use my phone any where near the amount most people do. If I did I would need to carry 3 to 4 spare batteries around with me!
Thats weird my verizon galaxy s4 is pretty good. After I wake up and unplug it its 100 percent and by the end of the day with little use I can get about 70 percent and Im using nova launcher prime on 4.4.2
Posted via Android Central App
Posted via Android Central App
I was having the exact same problems with my S4 as well. Horrible battery life and overheating for no apparent reason. It got to the point that I went back to using my old HTC even though it was an old Gingerbread model. I had tried just about every fix I saw posted on various forums with no real improvement. I even went as far as demanding (and getting) a replacement S4 and a new battery from AT&T. The problems did not go away though.
Along the way I learned that Kit Kat made some big changes in the way the phones interact with a SD card. In a nutshell, the older versions of the os allowed apps pretty much unrestricted access to all folders on the SD card. Apps and data could install themselves anywhere when moved and they did just that. Kit Kat, however, requires apps to use specific app folders that are designated for that app only. So far so good. Here's the problem, if you upgraded from a previous version of the os (as many of us did), the legacy data from before the upgrade is now in the wrong place as far as Kit Kat is concerned I believe. When you phone tries accessing these folders, that are now off limits as far as Kit Kat is concerned, problems happen. Since I was out of good options and I had largely given up on the S4 anyway, I decided to cut the Gordian Knot so to speak. First I erased reformatted (unmounting and remounting) the SD card completely. All apps, music, data, etc-gone. I obviously made a point of backing up just the music but everything else was erased. I then did a factory reset of the phone itself. This is the one where you turrn off the handset completely (hold down power and select turn off). Then, once off, hold the power and volume up buttons until a small bit of blue text appears in the upper left corner of the screen. Release those buttons as soon as that text appears. A small android animation should appear followed by a menu. One of the choices, Factory Reset, completely wipes the phone.
After doing these rather drastic steps, I proceeded to start using the phone again. This time, I deliberately tried to overstress things. Specifically, I copied 450 songs over via the USB cable, installed about 30 apps and did a full MS Exchange sync simultaneously. The result, nothing. No overheating problems at all. It has been a few weeks now and the problem has not resurfaced under any conditions. Really a night and day kind of change. Where the phone was a barely usable hand warmer before, it is now really good.
While I cannot say with complete certainty what was going on, I believe that certain apps do not play well with Kit Kat. Those apps, which unfortunately put their data in places on the SD card where they cannot go, essentially left the phone fighting with itself as the app said to do one thing and the OS said to do another. Unfortunately, without knowing all the apps that have this issue, the only sure solution that I could see was to start over completely. I know it is no one's idea of fun to have to take steps like this but, to date, it has completely eliminated the problem.
Along the way I learned that Kit Kat made some big changes in the way the phones interact with a SD card. In a nutshell, the older versions of the os allowed apps pretty much unrestricted access to all folders on the SD card. Apps and data could install themselves anywhere when moved and they did just that. Kit Kat, however, requires apps to use specific app folders that are designated for that app only. So far so good. Here's the problem, if you upgraded from a previous version of the os (as many of us did), the legacy data from before the upgrade is now in the wrong place as far as Kit Kat is concerned I believe. When you phone tries accessing these folders, that are now off limits as far as Kit Kat is concerned, problems happen. Since I was out of good options and I had largely given up on the S4 anyway, I decided to cut the Gordian Knot so to speak. First I erased reformatted (unmounting and remounting) the SD card completely. All apps, music, data, etc-gone. I obviously made a point of backing up just the music but everything else was erased. I then did a factory reset of the phone itself. This is the one where you turrn off the handset completely (hold down power and select turn off). Then, once off, hold the power and volume up buttons until a small bit of blue text appears in the upper left corner of the screen. Release those buttons as soon as that text appears. A small android animation should appear followed by a menu. One of the choices, Factory Reset, completely wipes the phone.
After doing these rather drastic steps, I proceeded to start using the phone again. This time, I deliberately tried to overstress things. Specifically, I copied 450 songs over via the USB cable, installed about 30 apps and did a full MS Exchange sync simultaneously. The result, nothing. No overheating problems at all. It has been a few weeks now and the problem has not resurfaced under any conditions. Really a night and day kind of change. Where the phone was a barely usable hand warmer before, it is now really good.
While I cannot say with complete certainty what was going on, I believe that certain apps do not play well with Kit Kat. Those apps, which unfortunately put their data in places on the SD card where they cannot go, essentially left the phone fighting with itself as the app said to do one thing and the OS said to do another. Unfortunately, without knowing all the apps that have this issue, the only sure solution that I could see was to start over completely. I know it is no one's idea of fun to have to take steps like this but, to date, it has completely eliminated the problem.
Download 360 security (it is a blue box with a blue "s" in it on the google play store and it is absolutely free) and optimize your phone and use the battery fix (which has you force stop apps that have little effect on the main systems) and if you want you can do the scan for viruses and such and maybe you want to clean up your phones memory usage (does not delete the actual files it just cleans them up). I have found it works really well I optimized my phone today and my batter went up about 4 percent. Happy phone usage.
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