Battery draining fast - started on 6/23/2016

[AC Question]

We have two Samsung Galaxy SII phones. We use Sprint. Both started having problems with the battery draining extremely fast at the same time. When I look under Settings: Applications: running: It shows Google play services, com.samsumg.internal, voicemail, and some other Sprint services gaining time at a high rate. The battery is draining so fast, it is getting hot.
Is there a way to reset or fix the phone?

 

[robertrj]

Thanks for the info jsigmo, glad now it is working.

I will see about this Kies update. Honestly I have not used Kies here, because it used to be very computationally intensive in my old computer, and even after upgrading to a new one I never thought about using it. I do manual backup of the things I find more important, like some photos and all.

But, I'm not sure if here in Brazil there is a kind of provider update like you had with AT&T. I notice my phone has some apps from my provider, not many and that don't bother much, and I never noticed it providing its own updates. Well, I will try this weekend when I have more time.

Honestly, I am not in a good mood of upgrading my Android. I'm used to this one, and I find unnecessary to have to upgrade a phone that has been working ok some weeks ago because of a single app from Google that is clearly with problems (considering it was not an intentional problem).

Not sure if anyone is still looking here, but I found something curious today, checking on my CleanMaster app (for those who don't know, it is an app that cleans junk files and free memory). Checking the junk files list, I notice that I always have around 200 Mb of cache files, half of it from Gallery. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the Gallery cache is used for thumbnails, to make it faster to access images. And I never noticed it being this big: usually the gallery cache grew in size after I was browsing the photos. But if I kept it still, it was always with small size cache.


Worst part is: I clean the cache, I go check it again in some minutes and it is all back there!

Similar thing happens with memory. I notice some apps that were never there, like the default Email one and Google+. Of course they don't consume a lot of memory, but still, makes me wonder why they are running in my phone now.

I'm taking a look at some Google forums, and I'm noticing some people seem to be solving the problem by upgrading their Android. Makes me wonder if this is the only option...

 

[jsigmo]

Thanks for the status report from your end, too robertrj.

It might be worthwhile to install Kies on your latest PC and try it. It is nice to be able to back up all of the contacts, photos, text message history, notes, etc., easily with it, and then be able to restore it all easily as well.

I'm not sure about the Galaxy Ace 2, but for our two Skyrocket S2 units, I had to download the old version of Kies. It's version 2.6 and Samsung has it on their website along with the newer version. They explain which phones require which version. It has to do with the version of Android that the phones use. For us, we needed the older version. So check that out and make sure you are getting the version of Kies that's appropriate for your phone.

I've always had trouble with Kies communicating with the phones when running it on my laptop (Win 7 Pro), and this last go-round was no different. It would kind of connect, but it would have trouble when I actually tried to update the operating system.

So I installed Kies on one of my other PCs (a desktop also running Win 7 Pro), and it works flawlessly from that machine. Samsung does warn you to use only a Samsung USB cable, but I tried several on the laptop and none of them worked, but the first one I used on the desktop PC worked fine. It could be a USB cable issue, but one of the ones that did not work for me on the laptop was a Samsung cable. Who knows?

But I guess the point is that the communication does seem touchy, so if you have problems, try different cables and even different PCs until you find a combination that works.

With it all working, I sort of like Kies now. I think I'll use it to periodically back up things from my phone.

It may be that the newest version of Google Play Services requires that you have the very latest revision of phone firmware (OS).

At this point, I don't have very many apps re-installed on the phone. And I have a lot more free memory than I did before. Before I did the factory reset, I did notice a HUGE number of what looked to me like random temp files filling the root directory. I mean something like 1700 of them! I was going to just delete them, but when I tried, that didn't seem to actually work. They were just back again after I thought it had deleted them.

When you connect your phone to the PC with Kies running, it will take a while to connect. But once it does, it will check the operating system to see if it's the latest version, and let you know if it isn't.

It may be that you'll have to update to the latest OS release for your phone, but you may also have to do a factory reset, too.

Make sure you back everything up before you do either of those, of course.

And then it'll be interesting to see if your provider also then has an operating system update for you. They may not. AT&T likes to have complete and total control, so they do that. Other providers may be perfectly happy with whatever the phone manufacturer provides.

And that would be better for you. You probably get to use your phone as a WiFi hotspot without paying extra to your provider (as is supposed to be the case). With AT&T, you must pay them something like an additional $10 per month if you want to use what is supposed to be a built-in feature (that they've disabled in their version of the OS).

But I never really want to use that feature anyhow because it would just run up your data usage on your data plan and potentially cost a lot that way. Still, it's aggravating to have features disabled by the provider so they can charge you to re-enable them the way the OS was intended to be in the first place.

As for the general feel of the upgrade for me, from 4.0.4 to 4.1.2: I have to say that I like a lot of what's different.

One thing that always bugged me about the old version was that to turn the volume up or down for the "notifications" (such as receiving an email or text), I had to open the tools menu, go down to Sounds, then go through several other steps to get to where that can be adjusted.

With this new version, I can just use the volume up/down key, and a little menu shows up with a tools icon on it, and pressing that, I have access to that "notifications" volume. So that saves a bit of time every morning and evening.

Some of the look and feel is also nicer.

So far, with my very limited installed apps, it's working fine. It may well be that a guy should periodically do a factory reset just to get rid of garbage that's collected over the years. Kind of like wiping the HD on a PC and doing a clean re-install of the OS and any software that you actually want to be using.

Good luck with your phone. I hope I've got mine running well for another few years now!

 

[Max2598]

My tablet was back working like before this afternoon. Six hours on battery, and still 75% of battery left. There must have been a forced update, because I didn't do anything special. I noticed that the package name that was mainly responsible for draining the battery (com.google.android.gms) had been changed ("persistent" has been added at the end).
Unfortunately, it didn't last long. Tonight, there seem to have been another change, update maybe: the battery started draining really fast again, the tablet constantly awake, and the damned package is back!
The change is clearly visible in the screenshot below.

 

[robertrj]

Well, I think I found something. I was browsing some Google Play forums, found one in Spanish where I found some people with a temporary solution. So far it works.

To try to help the others, here is a list of the things I did:

> First, I have deactivated all kind of sync features, like background data, location, account synchronization, etc.
> Also, in the Google Play Store app, I turned off all the automatic updates, as well as notifications of new versions.
> As recommended at the forum, I search in the Internet for an older Google Play Services apk, specifically from version 7.3.29. Downloaded it straight from my phone
> In my particular case, I had to allow the installation of apps that are not from Google Play (Settings > Applications > Unknown Sources)
> To avoid any connection, I put my phone in Airplane Mode. Thus, wifi and data completely off (to make sure the battery draining app wouldn't be downloaded without my consent again )
> Back to Settings > Applications, I uninstalled the Google Play Services that has been causing me so much trouble
> Searching at my download folder, I installed the apk from the older version (I used the default Android apk installation feature, there were others too)
> Restarted my phone, and then turned off Airplane Mode.

I would like to point that at first it didn't seem that it was working. I could still see my battery consumption with Google Play Services at the top (later I found out why, or at least I think). At first I was disappointed, even wrote in the forum that it was no good for me. Put my phone to charge in the evening until it was full, then turned it off and went to sleep.

In the morning, I saw the battery was not so low as usual, showing a typical 5-10% I was having after turning it off at night (my battery is old, I believe this is expected). Just to check, I looked at battery consumption, and Google Play Services was with a insignificant 2%!

And so far, so good. It is 20:45 and my battery still has 66% after the whole day. It is important to notice that I'm still using the Energy Saving feature, but seems like it is ok now.

I haven't touched any of the sync features yet. Still, I tried my Gmail app and sync my emails, all worked fine and battery consumption was not affected.

Well, but as soon as you set accounts to sync, the power-hungry new version of Google Play Services comes again, as reported by a guy in the forum. I have not checked yet how it happens if I try other things, like turning on GPS for example. But, I'm managing to use my phone, see my emails once in a while and get messages, so it is fine for me for now.

I noticed right now that I have to update my Whatsapp version. Well, I will use it as a test, because I will have to go to Google Play Store to get the newer version of Whatsapp.

At least, I guess I have a procedure now. I'm keeping the apk of the older version in my phone, so in any situation I notice battery draining I will check if the new version was downloaded, then I will do it all again.

Anyway, this is a temporary solution. I still wait for Google to provide a definitive one. What really makes me worried is that until now there was no kind of official comment from Google, saying they are aware of it and are working to solve this problem, which I hope it is just a bug. Let's see what happens.

 

[robertrj]

Me again... As I imagined. When I tried to update my Whatsapp, I had to turn out background data. Ok,did that and went straight to Google Play Store to update my Whatsapp version.

Then, what happens? It shows "download is pending"...

Stayed like that for some minutes, and then by curiosity I decided to check what version of Google Play Services was there. And again, 9.2.56 version is back... :'(

Did all the procedure again, and it seems fine now. Hope it stays like that

 

[jsigmo]

Just another update from me.

Version 9.2.56 is working fine for me still

Google Play Services doesn't even show up on my battery usage graphs. Phone calls, display, etc., are what have used the battry for me so far today. It has been on battery for over eight hours, and voice calls have accounted for 59% of the usage, visual voicemail (retrieving a number of mesages) has used 15%, screen 8%, cell standby 8%, etc.

So for me, it appears that updating the operating system to the very latest available version, and doing a factory reset cured the problem.

That doesn't definitively show what the exact culprit was, because so much gets cleaned out and updated by doing those steps. But it suggests that the new version of Google Play Services is incompatible with the older operating system version I had been running on this phone.

My wife's phone was already running this newer OS version, and hers has not suffered from any of this.

So as much effort as it is, it may be worth backing your phone up, doing a factory reset, and loading the very latest operating system version. So far, so good on mine, anyhow.

Tabbed in.

 

[robertrj]

Thanks for the update, jsigmo.

This really seems the issue. From what I have been seeing in other forums as well, the 9.2.56 version is the one to blame for battery consumption. Many users said that after removing it, battery problem stops, as well as some other issues that follow it (like significant phone heating and heavy usage that makes interface slow to use). Of course, without Google Play Services many apps stop working, restraining the phone capabilities.

Using an older version seems to work for me, but for that I had to stop some sync features,or else the older version is automatically updated, even if you configure to not auto update apps. This is already an issue in my opinion: I know some apps are part of the Android core structure, but still I believe that this kind of update should not be automatic. From what I understand, if I'm not in wifi and there is an update, those apps will download those files (which sometimes are not small), thus consuming data that I had not authorized. Anyway, not sure if this kind of auto update respect the network configurations, since it is possible to update apps in wifi only (but not sure if this is considered in this case).

Anyway, for me this old version of Google Play Services has not caused any problems. I can still use some of the Google apps, such as Gmail, using a manual sync of my messages. Whatsapp seems ok too, I get messages in my phone even with Backgroud Data deactivated. Google Play Store is a little problematic, that requests to turn on that Background Data to be able to access the store and to download apps, and in this process Google Play Services is again updated, bringing back the battery issues.

Other one is Google Talk, requesting the Background Data to be on. I know, this is an old app, it was replaced by Hangouts, but honestly I prefer the smiles back there, like in this forum . Still, I can live without it in my phone.

I was thinking about a system upgrade, but personally I'm not very interested on that. In my case, I have a Galaxy Ace Plus 2, and it would be updated to Jelly Bean, and I have read some reviews over the internet about this system being too heavy for this phone. I'm afraid that following this procedure would solve the Google Play Services problem but bring me a new one, with a phone being too slow to use. Maybe I'm overreacting, but for now the old system seems ok, working nicely.

Anyway, I would still like to hear a word from Google. It really seems like there is a big incompatibility between the newest Google Play Services version and older systems, but it is not clear if this is a bug that should (and hopefully will) be fixed, or if this is the expected behavior. I understand how software works, and specially today developers usually stop support to older versions of hardware and software. I hope it is not it, because I believe there are lots of people that still have older phones, who don't want or even can't upgrade to newer phones. Still, if this is the case, would be nice to let the users know. This way, each one can decide what to do... Like, trying a system update, getting a new phone or letting it how it is.

If this is the case, Google should at least keep separate versions in the store. I don't know, seems like something easy to achieve, I have tried to install many apps and even before downloading it says it is not compatible with my system. Maybe somethign similar should be done with Google Play Services, allowing its update only if the phone's system is compatible with this update.