Galaxy Note 2 - Massive battery drain after 4.3 update

[Jeff Wolf]

I am having the same issue but it just started a day ago and I have not added or changed anything on my phone. Any help would be great

 

[Christos Terzis]

I am having the same issue but it just started a day ago and I have not added or changed anything on my phone. Any help would be great

Unfortunately it's a time bomb Jeff. It comes unexpectedly and noone knows the reason. Worst of all is that Samsung does not publicly acknowledge the problem so they do nothing to fix it. Hopefully they will quietly bring in the cure with the 4.4.2 update...though I wouldn't hold my breath. Meanwhile try if anything in this forum works for you. If you are rooted maybe flashing 4.3 again will help, (that worked for me). But any odd app or whatever could bring it up again.

 

[jssw]

I have been facing the battery drain issue since the 4.3 update, the normal standby drops from 1.5day of the 4.1.2 to less than 20 hours once after 4.3. I've done whatever means learning from different articles but no luck. Last two week before, an update from Samsung was available and I expect it will be a fix for tones of battery drain complaint. Unfortunately, it isn't, and the situation even worst; the standby drop to 10 hours only. Luckily, I found this forum and thanks for the contributors info, especially Christos. I follow the instructionto root my Note2, then remove the KNOX stuffs and restart my device, no change. I finally do a factory reset for my device, my Note2 seems much better now, it is almost 6 hrs after charge, and the battery life is at 82%. I'll observe the status and let you guys know if there is any abnormal behavior happen again.

 

[jsmat]

I got the same problem someone find a solution!

I had the same issue.
Thsolution for me was:
1. Factory reset
2. Reupdate via kies 3
3. Factory reset
4. Do not update anything GOOGLE (esp Play)or samsung

Battry life is great

PS: there is a new update available (in India) OTA and kies, but i'm not taking any chances untill its proven bug free

 

[AlexandreRP]

Thanks. My problem was also Automatic Call Recorder.

 

[ik3266]

I was having the same problem after 4.3 update , phones battery was draining even if i was not using it and it never happened before , i tried doing the factory reset and still it was the same. luckily i was able to solve this drain problem by re-flashing the firmware by using ODIN, I downloaded the exact 4.3 firmware from sammobile.com matching my country it was about 1.3 GB , I charged my mobile to 100% using the charger and then i flashed it using ODIN latest version. The method for flashing the firmware I found it on youtube

Galaxy Note 2 (N7100) - Official Android 4.3 Jellybean - How to install - YouTube

After flashing the battery was as good as before i have used Note 2 for 2.5 days without charging. Again this method is risky as it may brick your phone and you should do on your own risk, and i do not take any responsibility for the damage. I am just sharing my experience. I suggest if your phone is in warranty please contact service center and let them do it for you.

 

[ajhdigital]

Hi Christos

Android 4.3 appears to be much more exacting in requiring that the hardware is operating 100% correctly compared to Android 4.1.2 that I'd upgraded from.

I encountered a similar issue to you when I updated my Samsung Note 2 (GT 7105 version) to Android 4.3. Once I did the upgrade I noticed that the phone would freeze more often, especially when I was looking through my Contacts and the wifi hotspot function, which had been temperamental before the upgrade, was more so and would cause the phone to freeze. Like you battery consumption was visibly quick and the handset was noticeably hot.

My carrier has replaced my handset free of charge under warranty. It turned out that the root cause of my problem was a faulty transceiver chip:

Knowing the problem, the symptoms now made sense: The intermittent wifi hotspot performance was explained; the Contacts freezing was because my contacts are all in the cloud - and cloud access was dropping in and out; the heat was because Android 4.3 was trying to make the handset establish a reliable connection and in doing so running the battery extra hard!

So if your problem is still unresolved - visit your carrier and have them test to see if there is a fault with your transceiver chip.

Hope this helps!

 

[Throughnob]

Just recently updated my note 2 to 4.3 then experienced battery drain. I found in my case simply stoping Facebook sync made all the difference. Go to settings\ accounts \ change sync to disable. This is the only change I've made and it is only using 25 to 30 % battery a day. Apart from phone I run Wifi, Mobile Data, Bluetooth, and GPS. I'm not a big Facebook user so I don't need it to be constantly updated. This change has really made this phone even better.

I hope this helps.
G.

 

[stelvio88]

Are any of you guys by chance using Waze? My problem started last year after the 4.3 update. I tried everything to no avail. Last week my phone got a minor upgrade from Android. To my relief, battery drain was gone! Sadly yesterday the problem came back. I tried restarting and all sort of things. Then I remember the only different thing I did was I used waze on the way home the night before. I uninstalled waze and restarted the phone and voila! Problem is gone! !

Sent from my GT-N7100 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[jake3_14]

OMG! My OS is taking up 14% and Android Services is taking up 9%, for a total fo 23%!

 

[Anthony Appleton]

I had the same problem, (Samsung Note 2) however activating the developer mode seems to solve that. Did that yesterday and since then my Note 2 had it's normal battery life back. Charging is also no longer an issue. Go to settings menu, select "more", select "about device", go down to the "build number". Keep tapping it, after a few taps (can't remember, think it was 10 or something) it will tell you that you have 3 taps left before developer mode is activated. After the 3 taps it will say that you are now a developer. Press back and go into "developer options", tick the USB debugging box and then untick it again. Problem solved. I don't know if the last ticking bit actually makes a difference however, it is what I did (was attempting to try and root my phone) and it worked.

 

[lj05]

I've had a battery drain problem too. Mine got emptwifi 7 hrs or so after the update. Mine is a UAE phone and got my update this week. Thankfully I had a friend who faced the same problem after the 4.3 update. He unistalled Knox and did a hard reset and a memory card format. I did the same too and my problem was solved. My current battery status is 33% After 15 hrs and 37 minutes of moderate usage with wifi on all the time without charging.

 

[hIrVaRi]

My battery was drained last night 30% in 8.5hours. I updated official 4.3 jellybean months ago but battery drain started just few days ago.

 

[Christos Terzis]

My battery was drained last night 30% in 8.5hours. I updated official 4.3 jellybean months ago but battery drain started just few days ago.

Alright. Check what apps you have installed recently. More than likely an app has triggered a chain of reactions that led to your battery draining. Uninstall the last few if you cannot pinpoint one. Note that no battery monitor app is likely to show the rogue app due to many factors conspiring together to lead to the battery drain. In my case it was Automatic Call Recorder and it never showed anywhere as problematic. That is the nerve racking part of this sort of drainage. Also if you are streaming music in eg your car stereo from your phone via bluetooth, that could be another trigger. Understand that what I write here is from experience, not from IT knowledge or degrees. They could work for you or not. Even IT experts throw their hands in the air since this problem appeared. After uninstalling switch off your phone and start it again. Hopefully the drain will have stopped. If not try a factory reset. It's painful but it may work.

 

[aparker2005]

This repair battery app has helped mine. I don't know what it did but at 5 hours unplugged I'm at 89% instead of my regular 60 or so by now.

 

[Christos Terzis]

This repair battery app has helped mine. I don't know what it did but at 5 hours unplugged I'm at 89% instead of my regular 60 or so by now.

Which one?

 

[aparker2005]

Search battery life repair. It's the first app

 

[Inha]

Same problem here after a recent upgrade.
My phone use to last me all day, now its out of juice by 7pm. Same utilization as before and same apps as before. Biggest reported consumer after the screen is usually Android System or Google Play Services, sometimes my antivirus app (Lookout).
Really disappointing.

 

[Christos Terzis]

Same problem here after a recent upgrade.
My phone use to last me all day, now its out of juice by 7pm. Same utilization as before and same apps as before. Biggest reported consumer after the screen is usually Android System or Google Play Services, sometimes my antivirus app (Lookout).
Really disappointing.

I tried Lookout once. It killed my battery. I uninstalled immediately. Maybe that was just my phone but try to uninstall and use Advanced Mobile Care instead. Then restart your device. See if it does any difference.

 

[JasW]

Same problem here after a recent upgrade.
My phone use to last me all day, now its out of juice by 7pm. Same utilization as before and same apps as before. Biggest reported consumer after the screen is usually Android System or Google Play Services, sometimes my antivirus app (Lookout).
Really disappointing.

Really, just do a factory reset. I was messing around with disabling and deleting all kinds of things after the upgrade, and thought I had it a couple of times, only to end up with the same battery drain as before. The only thing that worked was a factory reset. Even with Kies 3 and Helium Premium, it was bit of a pain to restore things -- I'm still stunned that there is no simple way to restore one's phone to exactly the way it was -- but it was well worth it since my Note 2's glorious battery life has been restored.