Huge battery drain

[VidJunky]

Today is at least the second time, if not the 3rd or 4th, since the last update that my phone has died after only being off the charger for a few hours. OK I say a few but really it's been 8 hours but I typically can go 14 or more and end my day with around 30% battery left. Typical for me is to take the phone off the charger about an hour before work, use the phone all shift, listening to music between activities, watching videos at break while playing some game, and generally sending and receiving messages and other notifications, all while connected to my BT ear buds. In the first image my work day is between the charging lines, charging on my way home and continuing the charge once I get there. In the second image is today. Charging until I leave, and then a rather rapid decline, compared to the first image, as my shift begins, and dying only half way through my day. This 100% started after the last update and I'm assuming it is just me or a very small number of people as I've seen no other mention of an issue like this here or anywhere else.

Looking at my battery usage, YouTube is my biggest consumer, and it seems that it views YouTube and YouTube Music as one combined entity because I'm using Music way more than the video app and it only shows one. Anyway, for tonight it shows YT as 49% of my usage with only a little over 2 hours of usage. While in the first image YT is 35% of my usage with over 6 hours of usage. It also says over 9 hours of SOT but I think that may be for the day. Today's SOT is 6 hours.

When this happens I'm finding the device is warm, which is unusual. I'm going to try and clear the cache for YT. I've already cleared the partition cache for other reasons but will do it again, and restart the phone, on purpose this time, and see if this randomly happens again. It's all I have at the moment.

 

[B. Diddy]

Are Smart Downloads on? If they are, and if your cell signal is poor, maybe that's stressing the battery (since it's working hard to retain signal while also downloading huge files)?

 

[VidJunky]

I just looked in the app because I've never heard of SD, and it was on. It was set to automatic and medium quality but there are no files downloaded. I said no to automatic downloads when it asked after getting Premium. It's using 0 of 415 MB or something. The first time it happened I did think it could be related to signal, since I had been deep in the building, but it only started after the update, and I'm mostly in the same spaces when I work. So why not everyday, or at least more often? I charged just now and got it up over 50% and it's only dropped like 6-8%. It feels like the restart/reboot did something.

Even though YT is the high user, something seems to be happening in the background.

 

[B. Diddy]

Maybe it was just an app going rogue, which is why the restart helped? Keep an eye on it and let us know if the drain comes back.

 

[VidJunky]

That's the plan. Today I'm almost 3 hours in and just at 90% which feels normal.

The odd thing about this is what the usage shows. YouTube is at the top of the list each day, but on the day it shows the heaviest use, I had the best battery life. If something is happening in the background why doesn't it show in the usage?

 

[B. Diddy]

 

[VidJunky]

Yeah I'm going to either have to figure out why automatic restarts aren't working or create a schedule for myself to restart the device. I'm 11 hours in and only at 50% with probably 4 hours of SOT, which is normal.

 

[Trees]

Interesting to see the "Battery usage: 154%". Is that across more than one day?

 

[B. Diddy]

Yeah I'm going to either have to figure out why automatic restarts aren't working or create a schedule for myself to restart the device. I'm 11 hours in and only at 50% with probably 4 hours of SOT, which is normal.

Scheduled restarts aren't working correctly?

 

[mustang7757]

@VidJunky your not on beta 15?

 

[VidJunky]

I haven't had automatic restarts work since my S20, S21 maybe. So over time I've just stopped setting it at all. I set this one because it presented as a new option "as needed".

The reason I know it isn't working is because I never have to use my pin code when I wake up the phone. Back when it was working I would noticed every scheduled day that I would have to enter my pin code. Then it stopped and I checked the first few times that I noticed this and my time since a restart would be more than 7 days. Then I just stopped checking, stopped setting it, and stopped believing that it still worked. Since then I have still not to this day had to enter my pin after a scheduled restart.

On a side note, I took my phone off the charger maybe an hour before I left for work and played some videos in the background while getting ready to leave. When I get into the car I turn on my pod cast and navigation, and today I noticed that I was already at 81% and the phone was warm. So I restarted the phone and charged on my commute. I can already tell that it's going to be OK now just from the percentage it's gone down since taking it off of the charger. So yeah I got some funny stuff going on and I'm being forced to restart or suffer this bad battery life.

 

[VidJunky]

Interesting to see the "Battery usage: 154%". Is that across more than one day?

Yeah I'm not sure how it calculates that, unless it only restarts if the device is charged to 100%. I'm picturing charging to 100% then charging again like in the car but not getting to 100% and then finishing out the day many hours beyond the estimated full charge duration.

 

[Golfdriver97]

cleared the partition cache

In recovery?

 

[VidJunky]

Device care is telling me that YouTube is using a lot of battery power and is requesting that I put the app to "deep sleep", not just to sleep but "deep" sleep. This seems odd. Now I've already cleared the cache, so I just now uninstalled the updates since I cannot uninstall the app, and cleared the data for the app. With the app closed I allowed it to update, hoping for less risk that the update may be corrupt, and will see if this last any amount of time. The last one only lasted a day or two, depending on how you look at it.

 

[Golfdriver97]

Yeah I'm not sure how it calculates that, unless it only restarts if the device is charged to 100%. I'm picturing charging to 100% then charging again like in the car but not getting to 100% and then finishing out the day many hours beyond the estimated full charge duration.

I think it counts total recharge percentage. In the screenshot where you scribbled out the section of charging, it looks like you charged from ~20% to ~90% (+70% gain) and then again from 50% - 100% (+50%). 50 + 70 = 120% in those 2 chunks.

Just a guess, and those are rough estimates. Between the scribble and the lack of graduations in the scale make it hard to determine.

 

[Golfdriver97]

Device care is telling me that YouTube is using a lot of battery power and is requesting that I put the app to "deep sleep", not just to sleep but "deep" sleep. This seems odd. Now I've already cleared the cache, so I just now uninstalled the updates since I cannot uninstall the app, and cleared the data for the app. With the app closed I allowed it to update, hoping for less risk that the update may be corrupt, and will see if this last any amount of time. The last one only lasted a day or two, depending on how you look at it.

I remember a while back (last summer) there was a quirk with the YouTube app that affected some users. I don't think they were Samsung devices though.

 

[VidJunky]

In recovery?

Yes, the recovery partition cache and the app cache both. But now I've cleared everything. I'm glad you asked this question though because I'll want to do this same thing to YT Music as well, since it seems to count them both as the same app in device care.

 

[VidJunky]

I remember a while back (last summer) there was a quirk with the YouTube app that affected some users. I don't think they were Samsung devices though.

So this prompted me to go looking for this issue and guess what I found it on Reddit. And what's the first thing that someone claiming to have this issue posted as their solution, uninstalling the app updates and letting it update again.

The OP doesn't say what type of device they have but I see iPhone in another comment.

https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1bv5006/youtube_battery_consumption

 

[Golfdriver97]

same thing to YT Music as well, since it seems to count them both as the same app in device care

I wouldn't be surprised if there is some kind of pointer to what the app is. If I am right, and since it is kind of a fork of YouTube, Google either missed it or deliberately left it as YouTube.

 

[Golfdriver97]

So this prompted me to go looking for this issue and guess what I found it on Reddit. And what's the first thing that someone claiming to have this issue posted as their solution, uninstalling the app updates and letting it update again.

The OP doesn't say what type of device they have but I see iPhone in another comment.

https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1bv5006/youtube_battery_consumption

Probably something in the cache files that carry over and mess with the app. Clearing all data and uninstalling updates gives a clear path for the app to update without the mess.