Insomniac Note. Too many sugary Lollipops?

[Skeediddley]

Hi all.

I’m relatively new to Android, Samsung and the Note4. Moved over from the walled garden of Apples a month or so ago.

Seeing as a Lollipop update was imminent for my device, I took the plunge immediately and installed the German SM-910F 5.01 Rom from sammobile on my unlocked UK phone. I figured I’d have nothing to lose from a factory reset BEFORE I settled down into the new world…

Worked blissfully well for about 3 weeks. Fast, Responsive, 2 Days battery, 5-6 Hrs SOT - Thats not to mention all the forbidden fruits that the apple farmers won’t allow.. uploads, downloads, widgets, customisations etc etc.

That is.. Up until 2 days ago, when I woke up to find it had inexplicably chewed through my battery. Since then, something is keeping the device awake.. not constantly.. but as you can see from the pic.. annoyingly intermittently constantly. SOT is still Ok, and I can still get through a day, so not a deal breaker.

Regardless.. I have tried the entire internet of power saving suggestions.

Location is Off. Location reporting Off (Set to battery saving when on anyway). Bluetooth, NFC etc. all off. OK google Listening Off. It still happens when I disable all sync AND restrict background services with Power Saving! I have disabled Whatsapp, Messenger, Facebook, SVoice, Samsung Bloats, Unnecessary Google Bloats. I have in short uninstalled anything I wasn’t using. (Since day one) Tried switching Back to Touchwiz from Nova. Tried signing out/in again of google account. Several reboots. Wiped Cache partition. Deleted Caches of individual apps. etc Nada. Something is still waking my Note up every other minute by the looks of things.

I’m not running any monitoring apps other than GSAM. I’m not rooted so can’t run wake lock detector or Greenify. Both the system and GSAM blame “Android System” which is now consistently the highest de-juicer. Sadly that doesn’t narrow it down much.

Anyone else seen this? Or know of an app that can help an un-rooted lollipopper track down the cause of the insomnia?

Cheers in advance

*Disclaimer: Note how I did not whine about running back to apple, or that this never happens on iOS etc. a) It does. b) Its clearly my own fault for installing an OS before it was officially released for my device! c) Still lovin the note.

 

[Javier P]

Re: Narcoleptic Note. Too many sugary Lollipops?

Wow! Quite difficult to give you new ideas. You did everything on the book already!

A couple of them. Do you have an SD card? If so remove it and see if that makes a difference.

Make sure in settings, WiFi, advanced that "scan always available" is off.

You have some signal problems and that's going to use an extra juice.

I've read that some Note 4s show drains from Dropbox and email syncing. Something to do with the default settings.

 

[Seremedy]

Re: Narcoleptic Note. Too many sugary Lollipops?

Its probably an app. Did you change Anny setting before your battery got crappy ? Or download any app before your batter turned bad ?

Posted via the NOTE 4 or NEXUS 9

 

[Skeediddley]

Re: Narcoleptic Note. Too many sugary Lollipops?

Thanks folks. Wifi scan always available is off. I came across that one

Will take out the SD card in case it's an indexing thing. Good shout.

The only thing I've installed myself recently is Zooper widgets. They are set to check only every 4 hrs though. Would simply not using Nova (and thus the zooper widgets) rule them out? Or would i have to uninstall completely to be sure?

Thanks for the advice!

 

[Javier P]

Re: Narcoleptic Note. Too many sugary Lollipops?

Never heard of Zooper giving problems. I use it with Nova as well. Are you using it for weather info or that kind of heavy data?

 

[Javier P]

Re: Narcoleptic Note. Too many sugary Lollipops?

The best way to rule out any app that you downloaded is to boot the phone in safe mode. I don't know if you want to go into that.

 

[goin_nil]

Re: Narcoleptic Note. Too many sugary Lollipops?

A battery draining issue I've had in the past was with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync sync settings (this is for Microsoft email). I had to switch the sync schedule from push to something less often such as every 5 minutes (or some other number of minutes you are comfortable with).

This might be worth looking at IF you use Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. Check your Accounts in settings for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync.

 

[goin_nil]

Re: Narcoleptic Note. Too many sugary Lollipops?

You might try using these apps to monitor CPU usage.

System Panel
https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...details?id=nextapp.systempanel&token=J-zWbOmK

Watchdog
https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...ails?id=com.zomut.watchdoglite&token=7I1u_Ps-

 

[goin_nil]

Re: Narcoleptic Note. Too many sugary Lollipops?

Keep in mind that ANY app update could cause issues. I had a trusted app (used for years) that had a major battery draining bug in one update (could watch the battery % drop). The developer was very helpful to diagnose/fix the issue.

So one recommendation (for future) is to not allow apps to auto update. Newer is not always better. Monitor the new versions and comments section before updating an app.

 

[Bosbouer]

Re: Narcoleptic Note. Too many sugary Lollipops?

You have covered most bases.

Signal strength fluctuations is a big contributer to battery's usage

Have you pulled the battery to force a complete clean restart. Indexing will take quite some time. By default lollipop uses ART which does quite a bit of indexing on fresh start.

 

[Skeediddley]

Re: Narcoleptic Note. Too many sugary Lollipops?

Thanks everyone.

That gives me a few more things to try; safe mode and the cpu monitoring apps should hopefully shed some light on this. Thanks.

& yes I am connecting to an exchange account. I had a sneaky suspicion that it could've been the push settings.... so I have limited the bejeezers out of it with a schedule. Could it be that it is ignoring me?

Other than that.. I have already removed the SD card, and I pull the battery and reboot ever day.

Big thanks to everyone for your help and suggestions!

 

[Bosbouer]

Re: Narcoleptic Note. Too many sugary Lollipops?

Interesting sync mode that you have on the DBT rom. How do you get to that option please?

 

[Skeediddley]

Re: Narcoleptic Note. Too many sugary Lollipops?

You can find that sync mode buried in the stock email app settings:

Email/Settings/Manage accounts/[Select your account]/Sync Settings/Sync Schedule

 

[Bosbouer]

Re: Narcoleptic Note. Too many sugary Lollipops?

You can find that sync mode buried in the stock email app settings:

Email/Settings/Manage accounts/[Select your account]/Sync Settings/Sync Schedule

Thanks! Been using maildroid for so long. Clean forgot about the mail sync settings

 

[qbnkelt]

Re: Narcoleptic Note. Too many sugary Lollipops?

I had a similar drain and disabled wave to wake gestures. I know you're going high tech with your solutions but might want to check that wee one.

Sent from my......nah....you guess........

 

[Skeediddley]

Re: Narcoleptic Note. Too many sugary Lollipops?

UPDATE:

Today was spent in Safe Mode (big thanks for the heads up on this good people of AC)

I also removed the SD card, pulled the battery, wiped the cache partition and disabled the last app that I was able to disable (Googel+) I also tried a period with all sync off completely. Which, with the addition of all the other known battery saving solutions, more or less leaves with me with everything off, and running ONLY Samsung and Google System apps.

As you can see - this made no difference at all. However, safe mode did allow me to work out who the culprit was.. & sadly it was “Android OS” which has kept my note awake for a whopping 3h and 13mins even in safe mode.

A smidgen of Googling later and it would seem I am not alone. Some of our distant relatives in S5 land woke up to find their previously peachy Lollipop S5s drained since 2 days ago as well.

http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s5/483051-samsung-s5-battery-drain-lollipop-3.html

http://forums.androidcentral.com/sa...attery-life-abysmal-past-2-days-otterbox.html

So… Seeing as they officially received Lollipop from Samsung, and have witnessed the same drain in the last few days, and I am unofficially Lollipopping on a Samsung and have seen the same degradation at precisely the same time - I’m going to stick my neck out here and say we have been struck by the same issue?

Following on from that assumption, would it be fair to say that in all probability, Its a recent Google update to one of its services that has introduced a bug on some Samsung devices? & now Samsung will have to fix it?

So (if all those assumptions are correct) the big question is - Do i bite my lip and wait for an official release of Lollipop for UK SM-910F, and hope someone has fixed something.. or roll back to KK? I guess I already know what the sensible answer is.

A Massive thanks for all your help folks.